The campaign was fought between the Allies, many of whom had colonial interests in Africa dating from the late 19th century, and the Axis Powers,[12][13] the Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German-occupied Europe. The United States officially entered the war in December 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa on 11 May 1942.

A fluctuating series of battles for control of Libya and regions of Egypt followed, reaching a climax in the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942 when British Commonwealth forces under the command of Lieutenant-GeneralBernard Montgomery inflicted a decisive defeat on Rommel's Afrika Korps and forced its remnants into Tunisia. After the Anglo-American landings (Operation Torch) in North-West Africa in November 1942, and subsequent battles against Vichy France forces (who then changed sides), the Allies encircled several thousand German and Italian personnel in northern Tunisia and finally forced their surrender in May 1943.

Operation Torch in November 1942 was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing American armed forces the opportunity to engage in the fight against Nazi Germany on a limited scale;[14] in addition, as Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, had long been pleading for a second front to be opened to engage the Wehrmacht and relieve pressure on the Red Army, it provided some degree of relief for the Red Army on the Eastern Front by diverting Axis forces to the North African theatre.

Information gleaned via British Ultra code-breaking intelligence proved critical to Allied success in North Africa. Victory for the Allies in this campaign immediately led to the Italian Campaign, which culminated in the downfall of the fascist government in Italy and the elimination of Germany's main European ally.

On 10 May 1940, the Wehrmacht had started the Battle of France (or Westfeldzug). One month later, it was plain to see that France would have to surrender within two weeks (the Armistice at Compiègne took place on 22 June 1940).

On 10 June 1940, the Kingdom of Italy aligned itself with Nazi Germany and declared war upon France and the United Kingdom.[15] British forces (along with Indian and Rhodesian troop said under the empire) based in Egypt were ordered to undertake defensive measures, but to act as non-provocatively as possible.[16] However, on 11 June they began a series of raids against Italian positions in Libya.[17] Following the defeat of France on 25 June, Italian forces in Tripolitania—facing French troops based in Tunisia—redeployed to Cyrenaica to reinforce the Italian Tenth Army.[18] This, coupled with the steadily degrading equipment of the British forces led General Archibald Wavell to order an end to raiding and placed the defence of the Egyptian border on a small screening force.[19]

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the Tenth Army to invade Egypt by 8 August. Two days later, no invasion having been launched, Mussolini ordered Marshal Graziani that, the moment German forces launched Operation Sea Lion, he was to attack,[20] on 8 September, the Italians—hampered by the lack of transport and enfeebled by the low level of training among officers and weakened by the state of its supporting arms[18] – were ordered to invade Egypt the following day. The battle plan was to advance along the coastal road, while limited armoured forces operated on the desert flank.[19] To counter the Italian advance, Wavell ordered his screening forces to harass the advancing Italians, falling back towards Mersa Matruh, where the main British infantry force was based. Positioned on the desert flank was the 7th Armoured Division, which would strike the flank of the Italian force.[21][22]

By 16 September, the Italian force had advanced to Maktila, around 80 mi (130 km) west of Mersa Matruh, where they halted due to supply problems.[23] Despite Mussolini urging that the advance carry on, Graziani ordered his force to dig in around Sidi Barrani, and fortified camps were established in forward locations; additional troops were also positioned behind the main force.[24] In response to the dispersed Italian camps, the British planned a limited five-day attack, Operation Compass, to strike at these fortified camps one by one,[25][26] the British Commonwealth force, totalling 36,000 men,[27] attacked the forward elements of the 10-division-strong Italian army on 9 December.[28] Following their initial success, the forces of Operation Compass[29] pursued the retreating Italian forces;[30] in January, the small port at Bardia was taken,[31] soon followed by the seizure of the fortified port of Tobruk.[32] Some 40,000 Italians were captured in and around the two ports, with the remainder of the Tenth Army retreating along the coast road back to El Agheila. Richard O'Connor sent the 7th Armoured Division across the desert, with a small reconnaissance group reaching Beda Fomm some ninety minutes before the Italians, cutting off their retreat. Although desperate attempts were made to overcome the British force at the Battle of Beda Fomm, the Italians were unable to break through, and the remnants of the retreating army surrendered. Thus, over the course of 10 weeks Allied forces had destroyed the Italian Tenth Army and reached El Agheila, taking 130,000 prisoners of war in the process.[33][34][35]

A British Matilda Mk II during Operation Compass displaying a captured Italian flag, 24 January 1941

Mussolini requested help from his German ally while the Italian Commando Supremo speedily sent several large motorized and armoured forces to protect their colonies in North Africa,[36] this greatly expanded reinforcement included the soon to be renowned Ariete Armoured division under General Ettore Baldassarre.[37] Meanwhile, the Germans hastily assembled a motorized force, whose lead elements arrived in Tripoli in February, this relatively small expeditionary force, termed the Afrika Korps by Hitler, was placed under the command of Erwin Rommel. His orders were to reinforce the Italians and block Allied attempts to drive them out of the region.[38][39] However, the initial commitment of only one panzer division and subsequently, no more than two panzer and one motorized divisions, indicated the limited extent of German involvement and commitment in this theater of operations,[37] the bulk of the reinforcements were Italian and therefore it was up to the Italians to do the bulk of the fighting. The forward Allied force—now named XIII Corps—adopted a defensive posture and over the coming months was built up, before having most of its veteran forces redeployed to Greece; in addition, the 7th Armoured Division was withdrawn to the Nile delta.[40][41][42] The veteran forces were replaced by inexperienced forces, ill-equipped to face German armour.[43]

Italian generals Ugo Cavallero and Ettore Bastico discussing the war at an Italian air base in Libya 1942

British Crusader tanks moving to forward positions during Operation Crusader, 26 November 1941

Although Rommel had been ordered to simply hold the line, an armoured reconnaissance soon became a full-fledged offensive from El Agheila in March 1941;[38][39] in March–April, the Allied forces were forced back [44] and leading general officers captured. The Australian 9th Infantry Division fell back to the fortress port of Tobruk,[45] and the remaining British and Commonwealth forces withdrew a further 100 mi (160 km) east to the Libyan–Egyptian border.[46] With Tobruk under siege from the main Italian-German force, a small battlegroup continued to press eastwards. Capturing Fort Capuzzo and Bardia in passing, it then advanced into Egypt, and by the end of April had taken Sollum and the tactically important Halfaya Pass. Rommel garrisoned these positions, reinforcing the battle-group and ordering it onto the defensive.[47][48]

Though isolated by land, Tobruk's garrison continued to receive supplies and replacements, delivered by the Royal Navy at night. Rommel's forces did not have the strength or training to take the fortress, this created a supply problem for his forward units. His front-line positions at Sollum were at the end of an extended supply chain that stretched back to Tripoli and had to bypass the coast road at Tobruk. Further, he was constantly threatened by a breakout of the British forces at Tobruk.[49] Without Tobruk in Axis hands, further advances into Egypt were impractical.[50][51]

The Allies soon launched a small-scale counter-attack called Operation Brevity, this was an attempt to push the Axis forces off the key passes at the border, which gained some initial success, but the advanced position could not be held. Brevity was then followed up by a much larger-scale offensive, Operation Battleaxe. Intended to relieve the siege at Tobruk, this operation also failed.

German prisoners captured during the Second Battle of El Alamein, November 1942

After receiving supplies and reinforcements from Tripoli, the Axis attacked again, defeating the Allies at Gazala in June and capturing Tobruk, the Axis forces drove the Eighth Army back over the Egyptian border, but their advance was stopped in July only 90 mi (140 km) from Alexandria in the First Battle of El Alamein.

Of great significance, on 29 June US reports from Egypt of British military operations stopped using the compromised "Black Code" which the Axis were reading, so learning of British "strengths, positions, losses, reinforcements, supply, situation, plans, morale etc".

General Auchinleck, although he had checked Rommel's advance at the First Battle of El Alamein, was replaced by General Harold Alexander. Lieutenant-General William Gott was promoted from XIII Corps commander to take command of the entire Eighth Army, but he was killed when his aircraft was intercepted and shot down over Egypt, he was replaced by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery.

At the end of June, the Axis forces made a second attempt to break through the Allied defences at El Alamein at Alam Halfa, but were unsuccessful, after a lengthy period of build-up and training, the Eighth Army launched a major offensive, decisively defeating the Italian-German army during the Second Battle of El Alamein in late October 1942, driving the Axis forces westward and capturing Tripoli in mid-January 1943. By February, the Eighth Army was facing the Italian-German Panzer Army near the Mareth Line and came under command of General Harold Alexander's 18th Army Group for the concluding phase of the war in North Africa, the Tunisia Campaign.

Operation Torch started on 8 November 1942, and finished on 11 November. In an attempt to pincer German and Italian forces, Allied forces (American and British Commonwealth), landed in Vichy-held French North Africa under the assumption that there would be little to no resistance. Nevertheless, Vichy French forces put up a strong and bloody resistance to the Allies in Oran and Morocco, but not in Algiers, where a coup d'état by the French resistance on 8 November succeeded in neutralizing the French XIX Corps before the landing and arresting the Vichy commanders. Consequently, the landings met no practical opposition in Algiers, and the city was captured on the first day along with the entire Vichy African command, after three days of talks and threats, Generals Mark Clark and Dwight Eisenhower compelled the Vichy Admiral François Darlan (and General Alphonse Juin) to order the cessation of armed resistance in Oran and Morocco by French forces on 10–11 November with the provision that Darlan would be head of a Free French administration. During Operation Torch, American, Vichy French and German navy vessels fought the Naval Battle of Casablanca, ending in an American victory.

Following the Operation Torch landings, (from early November 1942), the Germans and Italians initiated a buildup of troops in Tunisia to fill the vacuum left by Vichy troops which had withdrawn, during this period of weakness, the Allies decided against a rapid advance into Tunisia while they wrestled with the Vichy authorities. Many of the Allied soldiers were tied up in garrison duties because of the uncertain status and intentions of the Vichy forces.

Tiger 712 of the 501st heavy tank battalion was surrendered to the US and subsequently transferred to the United States Army Armor & Cavalry Museum[53]

During the winter, there followed a period of stalemate during which time both sides continued to build up their forces. By the new year, the British First Army had one British, one US and one French Corps (a second British Corps headquarters was activated in April); in the second half of February, in eastern Tunisia, Rommel and von Arnim had some successes against the mainly inexperienced French and US troops, most notably in routing the US II Corps commanded by Major GeneralLloyd Fredendall at the Battle of Kasserine Pass.

By the beginning of March, the British Eighth Army—advancing westward along the North African coast—had reached the Tunisian border. Rommel and von Arnim found themselves in an Allied "two army" pincer, they were outflanked, outmanned and outgunned. The British Eighth Army bypassed the Axis defence on the Mareth Line in late March and First Army in central Tunisia launched their main offensive in mid-April to squeeze the Axis forces until their resistance in Africa collapsed, the Axis forces surrendered on 13 May 1943 yielding over 275,000 prisoners of war. The last Axis force to surrender in North Africa was the 1st Italian Army,[54] this huge loss of experienced troops greatly reduced the military capacity of the Axis powers, although the largest percentage of Axis troops escaped Tunisia. This defeat in Africa led to all Italian colonies in Africa being captured.

The Axis had considerable success in intelligence gathering through radio communication intercepts and monitoring unit radio traffic, the most important success came through intercepting the reports of Colonel Bonner Fellers, the US military attaché in Egypt. He had been tasked by General George Marshall with providing detailed reports on the military situation in Africa.[55] Fellers talked with British military and civilian headquarters personnel, read documents and visited the battlefront. Known to the Germans as "die gute Quelle" (the good source) or more jokingly as 'the little fellow', he transmitted his reports back to Washington using the "Black Code" of the US State Department. However, in September 1941, the Italians had stolen a code book containing the Black Code, photographed it and returned it to the US embassy in Rome,[56] the Italians shared parts of their intercepts with their German allies. In addition the "Chiffrierabteilung" (German military cipher branch) were soon able to break the code. Fellers' reports were very detailed and played a significant role in informing the Germans of allied strength and intentions between January and June 1942.

An Italian M13/40 tank belonging to the Ariete Armoured Division

In addition, the Italian Servizio Informazioni Segrete or SIS code-breakers were able to successfully intercept much radio encrypted signals intelligence (SIGINT) from British aircraft traffic as well as first-class ciphers from British vessels and land bases, providing Supermarina (Regia Marina) with timely warnings of Allied intentions in the Mediterranean.[57] Indeed, so successful was the Italian SIS in handling the bulk of Axis naval intelligence in the Mediterranean, that "Britain's offensive use of SIGINT was largely negated by Italy's defensive SIGINT."[58]

The Afrika Korps had the intelligence services of the 621st Signals Battalion mobile monitoring element which arrived in North Africa in late April 1941,[59] commanded by Hauptmann Alfred Seeböhm, the 621st Signals Battalion monitored radio communications among British units.[55] Unfortunately for the Allies, the British not only failed to change their codes with any frequency, they were also prone to poor radio discipline in combat, their officers made frequent open, uncoded transmissions to their commands, allowing the Germans to more easily identify British units and deployments.[55] The situation changed after a counterattack during the Battle of Gazala resulted in the 621st Signals Battalion being overrun and destroyed, and a number of their documents captured, alerting British intelligence to the problem,[60] the British responded by instituting an improved call signal procedure, introducing radiotelephonic codes, imposing rigid wireless silence on reserve formations, padding out real messages with dummy traffic, tightening up on their radio discipline in combat and creating an entire fake signals network in the southern sector.[60]

Allied codebreakers read much enciphered German message traffic, especially that encrypted with the Enigma machine, the Allies' Ultra programme was initially of limited value, as it took too long to get the information to the commanders in the field, and at times provided information that was less than helpful.[61] In terms of anticipating the next move the Germans would make, reliance on Ultra sometimes backfired. Part of the reason the initial German attacks in March 1941 were so successful was that Ultra intercepts had informed Wavell that OKW had clearly directed Rommel not to take any offensive action, but to wait until he was further reinforced with the 15th Panzer Division in May.[62] Rommel received this information, but placed more value on his own assessment of the situation. Trusting that the Germans had no intention of taking major action, the British command did not respond until it was too late.[63] Furthermore, Rommel did not generally provide OKW or the Italian Comando Supremo details of his planned operations, for he thought the Italians too prone to leak the information, thus on 21 January 1942, when Rommel struck out on his second offensive from El Agheila, Commando Supremo was just as surprised to learn of it as the British were.[64] Ultra intercepts provided the British with such information as the name of the new German commander, his time of arrival, and the numbers and condition of the Axis forces, but they might not correctly reveal Rommel's intentions.

The primary benefit of Ultra intercepts to the effort in North Africa was to aid in cutting the Axis supply line to Tunisia. Ultra intercepts provided valuable information about the times and routes of Axis supply shipments across the Mediterranean, this was critical in providing the British with the opportunity to intercept and destroy them. During the time when Malta was under heavy air attack, the ability to act on this information was limited, but as Allied air and naval strength improved, the information became instrumental to Allied success, it is estimated that 40% to 60% of Axis supply shipping was located and destroyed due to decrypted information.[65][66] However, this claim is strongly disputed by the authors Vincent P. O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi (2013) who claim that authors like F.H. Hinsley have greatly exaggerated the effects of ULTRA, for example, they claim that intelligence provided by ULTRA had little impact in stopping Italian convoys reaching North Africa. Of the 2.67 million tons of materiel, fuel, and munitions shipped to Africa — nearly all in Italian vessels and under Italian escort — 2.24 million tons managed to arrive despite the best efforts of ULTRA and the British Navy to prevent it.[67] In effect, "Ultra did not deny the Axis armies the supplies they needed to reach the Nile." [58]

Heavy losses of German paratroopers in Crete, made possible by Ultra warnings of the drop times and locations, meant that Hitler hesitated in attacking Malta,[68] which aided the British in gaining control of the Mediterranean, as did the losses of the Italian Navy at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[69] To conceal the fact that German coded messages were being read, a fact critical to the overall Allied war effort, British command required a flyover mission be carried out before a convoy could be attacked in order to give the appearance that a reconnaissance flight had discovered the target.

After victory by the Allies in the North African Campaign, the stage was set for the Italian Campaign to begin, the invasion of Sicily followed two months later. Nearly 400,000 Axis and Allied troops were either lost, injured, or died of disease by the end of the North African Campaign.

^8–11 November 1942. Vichy officially pursued a policy of armed neutrality and conducted military actions against armed incursions from Axis and Allied belligerents, the pledging of allegiance of the Vichy troops in French North Africa to the Allies convinced the Axis that Vichy could not be trusted to continue this policy, so they invaded and occupied the French rump state (Case Anton)

^ abDarlan joined the Allies in November 1942, ordering the French Army of Africa to cease fire and unite with the Free French, and became High Civilian and Military Commissioner in French North Africa. He was assassinated on 24 December 1942.

Sono circa 400.000 i prigionieri fatti dagli inglesi in Etiopia e in Africa settentrionale, 125.000 presi dagli americani in Tunisia e in Sicilia, 40.000 lasciati ai francesi in Tunisia ("There were about 400,000 prisoners made by the British in North Africa and in Ethiopia, 125,000 taken by the Americans in Tunisia and Sicily, 40,000 by the French in Tunisia")[8]

Considering that about 100,000 Italian prisoners were taken in East Africa and that prisoners taken by the Americans were mainly in Sicily, the total is around 340,000–350,000.[citation needed]

^Colin F. Baxter. "The War in North Africa, 1940–1943: A Selected Bibliography". 1996. Page 38. 500,000 prisoners are listed as being taken in North Africa, East Africa, and Sicily; as 150,000 POWs were taken in the Allied invasion of Sicily, and about 100,000 in East Africa, this would leave ~250,000 to be taken in North Africa; 130,000 during Operation Compass, and 120,000 afterwards.

^"Intelligence in North Africa" Quote:Protection of the top secret Ultra source meant that the distribution of Ultra was extremely slow and by the time it had reached the relevant commander it was often out of date and therefore at best useless and at worst dangerously mis-leading.

^Verlauf März 1941. In: Der Feldzug in Afrika 1941–1943 (deutsches-afrikakorps.de). Abgerufen am 24. November 2009. Quote: Schuld an dieser Einschätzung sind die Enigma Berichte, aus denen Wavell ersehen kann, dass Rommel lediglich den Auftrag hat, die Syrte-Front zu stabilisieren, und dass sein wichtigster Verband, die 15. Panzerdivision, noch nicht in Afrika eingetroffen ist. Translated: The responsibility for this assessment are the Enigma reports, which can be seen from Wavell that Rommel only has a mandate to stabilize the Sirte front, and that his most important unit, the 15th Panzer Division, has not yet arrived in Africa.

^Lewin p. 33 Quote: On 30 March Wavell signalled, 'I do not believe he can make any big effort for another month.'

^Lewin pp. 99–101 Quote from Rommel's diary: I had maintained secrecy over the Panzer Group's forthcoming attack eastwards from Mersa el Brega and informed neither the Italian nor the German High Command. We knew from experience that Italian Headquarters cannot keep things to themselves and that everything they wireless to Rome gets round to British ears. However, I had arranged with the Quartermaster for the Panzer Group's order to be posted in every Cantoniera in Tripolitinia on 21 January ...

1.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan

2.
Crusader tank
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The Tank, Cruiser, Mk VI or A15 Crusader was one of the primary British cruiser tanks during the early part of the Second World War. Over 5,000 tanks were manufactured and they made important contributions to the British victories during the North African Campaign, the first variation Crusader I tank entered service in 1941, and, though manoeuvrable, it was relatively lightly armoured and under-armed. Improved armour thickness to 49mm marked out the Crusader II variant, the main armament for the Crusader Mark I and IIs was an Ordnance QF2 pounder main gun, but the Crusader III was fitted with an Ordnance QF6 pounder main gun. This variant was more than a match for the mid-generation German Panzer III, as part of the 1st Armoured Brigade, the Crusader was to prove vital during the Battle of El Alamein, at Tobruk and in Tunisia. In 1938, Nuffield Mechanizations and Aero Limited produced their A16 design for a cruiser tank based on Christie suspension. Looking for a lighter and cheaper tank to build, the General Staff requested alternatives, to this end, the A13 Mk III cruiser tank, which would enter service as the Tank, Cruiser Mk V, was designed. Nuffield was, in 1939, offered the opportunity to part in the production of the Covenanter. Nuffield, however, preferred to work on its own version of the A13—though it still provided design work for the Covenanters turret and this new tank was adopted as Tank, Cruiser, Mk VI Crusader, under General Staff specification A15. Although Crusader is often referred to as a version of the Covenanter. Both tanks were ordered off the board without building prototypes first. Despite a later start, the model of the Crusader was ready six weeks before the first Covenanter. The 32 in -diameter wheels were of pressed steel with solid rubber tyres, the hull sides were built up of two separated plates, with the suspension arms between them. It had a different engine from the Covenanter, different steering system, Covenanter used a brand new engine design, whereas Crusader adapted the proven Liberty engine to fit into a lower profile engine compartment. At the left side of the front hull—a place occupied by the radiator in the Covenanter—was mounted a small hand-traversed auxiliary turret armed with a Besa machine gun. The auxiliary turret was awkward to use and was removed in the field or remained unoccupied. Both the A13 Mk III Covenanter and the A15 Crusader designs used the main turret. The turret was polygonal—with sides that sloped out then in again—to give maximum space on the turret ring diameter. There was no cupola for the commander who instead had a hatch with the periscope mounted through it

3.
Panzer IV
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The Panzerkampfwagen IV, commonly known as the Panzer IV, was a German medium tank developed in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz, the Panzer IV was the most widely manufactured German tank of the Second World War, with some 8,500 built. The Panzer IV saw service in all combat theaters involving Germany and was the only German tank to remain in production throughout the war. Upgrades and design modifications, intended to counter new threats, extended its service life, the Panzer IV was the most widely exported tank in German service, with around 300 sold to Finland, Romania, Spain and Bulgaria. After the war, Syria procured Panzer IVs from France and Czechoslovakia, the Panzer IV was the brainchild of the German general and innovative armored warfare theorist Heinz Guderian. In concept, it was intended to be a tank for use against enemy anti-tank guns and fortifications. Ideally, each battalion in a panzer division was to have three medium companies of Panzer IIIs and one heavy company of Panzer IVs. On 11 January 1934, the German army wrote the specifications for a medium tractor, development was carried out under the name Begleitwagen, or BW, to disguise its actual purpose, given that Germany was still theoretically bound by the Treaty of Versailles ban on tanks. MAN, Krupp, and Rheinmetall-Borsig each developed prototypes, with Krupps being selected for further development, the chassis had originally been designed with a six-wheeled Schachtellaufwerk interleaved-roadwheel suspension, but the German Army amended this to a torsion bar system. Permitting greater vertical deflection of the roadwheels, this was intended to improve performance, in the turret, the tank commander sat beneath his roof hatch, while the gunner was situated to the left of the gun breech and the loader to the right. The turret was offset 66.5 mm to the left of the center line. Due to the layout, the right side of the tank contained the bulk of its stowage volume. Accepted into service as the Versuchskraftfahrzeug 622, production began in 1936 at Fried, Krupp Grusonwerk AG factory at Magdeburg. The first mass-produced version of the Panzer IV was the Ausführung A and it was powered by Maybachs HL 108TR, producing 250 PS, and used the SGR75 transmission with five forward gears and one reverse, achieving a maximum road speed of 31 kilometres per hour. As main armament, the vehicle mounted the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm Kampfwagenkanone 37 L/24 tank gun, against armored targets, firing the Panzergranate at 430 metres per second the KwK37 could penetrate 43 millimetres, inclined at 30 degrees, at ranges of up to 700 metres. A7.92 mm MG34 machine gun was mounted coaxially with the weapon in the turret. The main weapon and coaxial machine gun were sighted with a Turmzielfernrohr 5b optic while the machine gun was sighted with a Kugelzielfernrohr 2 optic. A was protected by 14.5 mm of armor on the front plate of the chassis

4.
Italian Libya
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The Adriatic Seas opposite western Balkans shore, with Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Albania, was planned for Italian expansion as the Third Shore, with Libya on the Mediterranean becoming the fourth. Thus the Fourth Shore was the part of Greater Italy. After the Italian Empire conquest of Ottoman Libya in the 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War and this group, first under the leadership of Omar Al Mukhtar and centered in the Jebel Akhdar Mountains of Cyrenaica, lead the Libyan resistance movement against Italian settlement in Libya. Resistance leaders were executed or escaped into exile, the forced migration of more than 100,000 Cyrenaican people ended in Italian concentration camps. Afterwards Libya was predominantly Italianized, and many Italian colonists moved there to populate Italian North Africa, the Italians in Libya numbered 108,419 at the time of the 1939 census. They were concentrated on the Mediterranean coast around the city of Tripoli, Libya was made an integral part of Italy in 1939 and the local population were granted a form of Italian citizenship. Tunisia was conquered by Italy in November 1942 and was added to the 4th Shore – Quarta Sponda – because of the community of Tunisian Italians living there. Italian colony During less than thirty years in Libya the Kingdom of Italy developed the cities and they built huge public works, such as new town districts with streets and buildings, modern ports, the Italian Libya Railways, and long highways. The Libyan economy and trade flourished very much, similar to what happened during the ancient Roman empire colony era, Italian farmers cultivated lands that had returned to being native desert for many centuries. Even archeology flourished, with ancient city of Leptis Magna rediscovered and used as a symbol of the Italian right to recolonize the region, Libya was considered the new America for Italian emigrants of the 1930s. Indeed in 1938 the governor, Italo Balbo, brought 20,000 Italian farmers to colonize Italian Libya, the 22,000 Libyan Jews were allowed to integrate without problems in the society of the 4th Shore. However after the summer of 1941, with the arrival of the German Nazi Afrika Korps, all these new villages each had a mosque, a school, a social center with sports facilities and a cinema, and a small hospital. Italian state On January 9,1939, the colony of Italian Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy, the French, in 1848, had incorporated French Algeria in this manner. By 1939 the Italians had built 400 kilometres of new railroads and 4,000 kilometres of new roads, the most important and largest highway project was the Via Balbo, an east-west coastal route connecting Tripoli in western Italian Tripolitania to Tobruk in eastern Italian Cyrenaica. Most of these projects and achievements were completed between 1934 and 1940 when Italo Balbo was governor of Italian Libya, as it became the Fourth Shore, fezzan, designated as South Tripolitania, remained a military territory. A governor general, called the first consul after 1937, was in direction of the colony, assisted by the General Consultative Council. Traditional tribal councils, formerly sanctioned by the Italian administration, were abolished, administrative posts at all levels were held by Italians. An accord with Britain and Egypt obtained the transfer of a corner of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, known as the Sarra Triangle, in 1939 Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy

5.
Kingdom of Egypt
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The Kingdom of Egypt was the independent Egyptian state established under the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in 1922 following the Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence by the United Kingdom. Between 1936-52, the British continued to maintain military presence and political advisors, in line with the change in status from sultanate to kingdom, the Sultan of Egypt, Fuad I, saw his title changed to King. The kingdoms sovereignty was subject to limitations imposed by the British, who retained enormous control over Egyptian affairs. Throughout the kingdoms existence Sudan was formally united with Egypt, however, actual Egyptian authority in Sudan was largely nominal due to Britains role as the dominant power in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Other political forces emerging in this included the Communist Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood. King Fuad died in 1936 and Farouk inherited the throne at the age of sixteen, alarmed by Italys recent invasion of Abyssinia, he signed the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, requiring Britain to withdraw all troops from Egypt, except in the Suez Canal Zone. The kingdom was plagued by corruption, and its citizens saw it as a puppet of the British and this, coupled with the defeat in the 1948-1949 Palestine War, led to the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 by the Free Officers Movement. Farouk abdicated in favour of his infant son Fuad II, in 1953 the monarchy was formally abolished and the Republic of Egypt was established. The legal status of Sudan was only resolved in 1954, when Egypt, in 1914, Khedive Abbas II sided with the Ottoman Empire and the Central Powers in the First World War, and was promptly deposed by the British in favor of his uncle Hussein Kamel. A group known as the Wafd attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to demand Egypts independence, included in the group was political leader, Saad Zaghlul, who would later become Prime Minister. When the group was arrested and deported to the island of Malta, from March to April 1919, there were mass demonstrations that turned into uprisings. This is known in Egypt as the First Revolution, British repression of the anti-occupation riots led to the death of some 800 people. In November 1919, the Milner Commission was sent to Egypt by the British to attempt to resolve the situation, in 1920, Lord Milner submitted his report to Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, recommending that the protectorate should be replaced by a treaty of alliance. As a result, Curzon agreed to receive an Egyptian mission headed by Zaghlul, the mission arrived in London in June 1920 and the agreement was concluded in August 1920. In February 1921, the British Parliament approved the agreement and Egypt was asked to send another mission to London with full powers to conclude a definitive treaty, Adli Pasha led this mission, which arrived in June 1921. The mission returned to Egypt in disgust, in December 1921, the British authorities in Cairo imposed martial law and once again deported Zaghlul. British influence, however, continued to dominate Egypts political life and fostered fiscal, administrative, Britain retained control of the Canal Zone, Sudan and Egypts external protection. Representing the Wafd Party, Zaghlul was elected Prime Minister in 1924 and he demanded that Britain recognize the Egyptian sovereignty in Sudan and the unity of the Nile Valley

6.
French Algeria
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French Algeria began in 1827 with the blockade of Algiers by the French navy and lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an part of France. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest of French North Africa, was never considered part of France, one of Frances longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, known as colons and later, as pieds-noirs. However, indigenous Muslims remained a majority of the population throughout its history. Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population with its lack of political and economic status fueled calls for political autonomy. Tensions between the two groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began. The war concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements, since the 1516 capture of Algiers by the Ottoman admirals, the brothers Oruç and Hayreddin Barbarossa, Algeria had been a base for conflict and piracy in the Mediterranean. In 1681, Louis XIV asked Admiral Abraham Duquesne to fight the Berber pirates, again, dEstrées bombarded Tripoli and Algiers from 1685 to 1688. An ambassador from Algiers visited the Court in Versailles, and a Treaty was signed in 1690 that provided peace throughout the 18th century, however, Bonaparte refused to pay the bill back, claiming it was excessive. In 1820, Louis XVIII paid back half of the Directorys debts, the dey, who had loaned to the Bacri 250,000 francs, requested from France the rest of the money. The Dey of Algiers himself was politically, economically. Algeria was then part of the Barbary States, along with todays Tunisia – which depended on the Ottoman Empire then led by Mahmud II —, the Barbary Coast was then the stronghold of the Berber pirates, which carried out raids against European and American ships. Conflicts between the Barbary States and the newly independent United States of America culminated in the First, an Anglo-Dutch force, led by Admiral Lord Exmouth, carried out a punitive expedition, the August 1816 bombardment of Algiers. The Dey was forced to sign the Barbary treaties, while the advance of U. S. British. The name of Algeria itself came from the French and his intention was to bolster patriotic sentiment, and distract attention from ineptly handled domestic policies by skirmishing against the dey. In the 1790s, France had contracted to purchase wheat for the French army from two merchants in Algiers, Messrs, Bacri and Boushnak, and was in arrears paying them. These merchants, Bacri and Boushnak who had debts to the dey, devals nephew Alexandre, the consul in Bône, further angered the dey by fortifying French storehouses in Bône and La Calle against the terms of prior agreements. After a contentious meeting in which Deval refused to provide answers on 29 April 1827

7.
French protectorate of Tunisia
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The French protectorate of Tunisia was established in 1881, during the French colonial Empire era, and lasted until Tunisian independence in 1956. Tunisia formed a province of the decaying Ottoman Empire but enjoyed a measure of autonomy under the bey Muhammad III as-Sadiq. In 1877, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, russian victory foreshadowed the dismemberment of the empire, including independence for several Balkan possessions and international discussions about the future of the North African provinces. The Berlin Congress of 1878 convened to resolve the Ottoman question, Britain, although opposed to total dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, offered France control of Tunisia, in return for Cyprus. Italy, which had interests in Tunisia, strongly opposed the plan but was unable to impose its will. Both of these countries had been possessions of the Ottoman Empire for three centuries, yet each had long ago attained political autonomy from the Sultan in Constantinople. Before the French arrived, Tunisia had begun a process of modern reforms, after their occupation the French government assumed Tunisias international obligations. Major developments and improvements were undertaken by the French in several areas, including transport and infrastructure, industry, the system, public health. Yet French business and its citizens were favored, not to the liking of Tunisians and their preexisting national sense was early expressed in speech and in print, political organization followed. The independence movement was active before World War I. Its ultimate aim was achieved in 1956, before French occupation, Tunisia formed a province of the Ottoman Empire, but enjoyed a large measure of autonomy. The Ottoman ruler had placed a governor, a pasha, in charge of the Tunisian province, however, this pasha quickly lost control to the military commander, the dey. And the dey, in his turn, had been ousted by a civil administrator, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire subsequently elevated the bey to the rank of dey and pasha, so that the decorum was satisfied all round. In 1705, the fell into the hands of Al-Husayn I ibn Ali at-Turki. When European influence continued to grow during the half of the 19th century. The bey had his own army and navy, struck his own coins, declared war and peace, maintained separate diplomatic relations and signed treaties. Nevertheless, the bey was officially a Turkish governor, invoked the Sultan in his prayers, and on first taking office had to apply for a firman, that is official recognition by the Sultan. From 1859 to 1882 Tunisia was ruled by the bey Muhammad III as-Sadiq, and the powerful Prime Minister, Mustapha Khaznadar, Khaznadar was minister of finance and foreign affairs and was assisted by the interior, defence, and naval ministers

8.
French protectorate in Morocco
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The French Protectorate in Morocco, Arabic, حماية فرنسا في المغرب‎‎ Ḥimāyat Faransā fi-l-Maḡrib) was established by the Treaty of Fez. It existed from 1912, when a protectorate was established, until independence. However, in the part of the 19th century Morocco’s weakness and instability invited European intervention to protect threatened investments. The first years of the 20th century witnessed a rush of diplomatic maneuvering through which the European powers, French activity in Morocco began during the end of the 19th century. France and Spain secretly partitioned the territory of the sultanate, with Spain receiving concessions in the far north and south of the country. The First Moroccan Crisis grew out of the rivalries of the great powers, in this case. Germany took immediate action to block the new accord from going into effect. Although the Algeciras Conference temporarily solved the First Moroccan Crisis it only worsened international tensions between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, in 1911, a rebellion broke out in Morocco against the Sultan, Abdelhafid. By early April 1911, the Sultan was besieged in his palace in Fez, the French dispatched a flying column at the end of April 1911 and Germany gave approval for the occupation of the city. Moroccan forces besieged the French-occupied city, approximately one month later, French forces brought the siege to an end. On 5 June 1911 the Spanish occupied Larache and Ksar-el-Kebir, on 1 July 1911 the German gunboat Panther arrived at the port of Agadir. There was a reaction from the French, supported by the British. France officially established a protectorate over Morocco with the Treaty of Fez, from a strictly legal point of view, the treaty did not deprive Morocco of its status as a sovereign state. The Sultan reigned but did not rule, Sultan Abdelhafid abdicated in favor of his brother Yusef after signing the treaty. On April 17,1912, Moroccan infantrymen mutinied in the French garrison in Fez, in late May 1912, Moroccan forces again unsuccessfully attacked the enhanced French garrison at Fez. First, the protectorate was established two years before the outbreak of World War I, which brought with it a new attitude toward colonial rule. Second, Morocco had a tradition of independence, though it had been strongly influenced by the civilization of Muslim Iberia. These circumstances and the proximity of Morocco to Spain created a relationship between the two countries

9.
Allies of World War II
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The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese, at the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, and dependent states, such as the British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland was a minor factor after its defeat in 1939, France was a minor factor after its defeat in 1940. China had already been into a war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942, however, the name United Nations was rarely used to describe the Allies during the war. The leaders of the Big Three – the UK, the Soviet Union, in 1945, the Allied nations became the basis of the United Nations. The origins of the Allied powers stem from the Allies of World War I, Germany resented signing Treaty of Versailles. The new Weimar republics legitimacy became shaken, by the early 1930s, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the dominant revanchist movement in Germany and Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933. The Nazi regime demanded the cancellation of the Treaty of Versailles and made claims to German-populated Austria. The likelihood of war was high, and the question was whether it could be avoided through strategies such as appeasement, in Asia, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, the League of Nations condemned it for aggression against China. Japan responded by leaving the League of Nations in March 1933, after four quiet years, the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japanese forces invading China. The League of Nations condemned Japans actions and initiated sanctions on Japan, the United States, in particular, was angered at Japan and sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement signed six months before, Britain and France decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war. On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert a German attack on the country, also, the French had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921. The Soviet Union sought an alliance with the powers. The agreement secretly divided the independent nations of eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for the German war machine, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Then, on 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, a Polish government-in-exile was set up and it continued to be one of the Allies, a model followed by other occupied countries. After a quiet winter, Germany in April 1940 invaded and quickly defeated Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Britain and its Empire stood alone against Hitler and Mussolini

10.
Axis powers
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The Axis powers, also known as the Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, were the nations that fought in World War II against the Allied Powers. The Axis agreed on their opposition to the Allies, but did not completely coordinate their activity, the Axis grew out of the diplomatic efforts of Germany, Italy, and Japan to secure their own specific expansionist interests in the mid-1930s. The first step was the treaty signed by Germany and Italy in October 1936, Mussolini declared on 1 November that all other European countries would from then on rotate on the Rome–Berlin axis, thus creating the term Axis. The almost simultaneous second step was the signing in November 1936 of the Anti-Comintern Pact, Italy joined the Pact in 1937. At its zenith during World War II, the Axis presided over territories that occupied parts of Europe, North Africa. There were no three-way summit meetings and cooperation and coordination was minimal, the war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers and the dissolution of their alliance. As in the case of the Allies, membership of the Axis was fluid, at the time he was seeking an alliance with the Weimar Republic against Yugoslavia and France in the dispute over the Free State of Fiume. The term was used by Hungarys prime minister Gyula Gömbös when advocating an alliance of Hungary with Germany, when Mussolini publicly announced the signing on 1 November, he proclaimed the creation of a Rome–Berlin axis. Italy under Duce Benito Mussolini had pursued an alliance of Italy with Germany against France since the early 1920s. He believed that Italy could expand its influence in Europe by allying with Germany against France, in early 1923, as a goodwill gesture to Germany, Italy secretly delivered weapons for the German Army, which had faced major disarmament under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. General Hans von Seeckt supported an alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union to invade and partition Poland between them and restore the German-Russian border of 1914. The discussions concluded that Germans still wanted a war of revenge against France but were short on weapons, however at this time Mussolini stressed one important condition that Italy must pursue in an alliance with Germany, that Italy must. Tow them, not be towed by them, the French government warned Italy that it had to choose whether to be on the side of the pro-Versailles powers or that of the anti-Versailles revanchists. Grandi responded that Italy would be willing to offer France support against Germany if France gave Italy its mandate over Cameroon, France refused Italys proposed exchange for support, as it believed Italys demands were unacceptable and the threat from Germany was not yet immediate. In 1932, Gyula Gömbös and the Party of National Unity rose to power in Hungary, Gömbös sought to alter Hungarys post–Treaty of Trianon borders by forming an alliance with Austria and Italy, knowing that Hungary alone was not capable of challenging the Little Entente powers. At the meeting between Gömbös and Mussolini in Rome on 10 November 1932, the question came up of the sovereignty of Austria in relation to the rise to power in Germany of the Nazi Party. Mussolini was worried about Nazi ambitions towards Austria, and indicated that at least in the term he was committed to maintaining Austria as a sovereign state. Italy had concerns over a Germany which included Austria laying land claims to German-populated territories of the South Tyrol within Italy, Mussolini said he hoped the Anschluss could be postponed as long as possible until the breakout of a European war that he estimated would begin in 1938

11.
Allied invasion of Sicily
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The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II, in which the Allies took the island of Sicily from the Axis powers. It was an amphibious and airborne operation, followed by a six-week land campaign and was the beginning of the Italian Campaign. Husky began on the night of 9/10 July 1943, and ended on 17 August, the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, was toppled from power in Italy and the way was opened for the Allied invasion of Italy. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, canceled a major offensive at Kursk after only a week, in part to divert forces to Italy, resulting in a reduction of German strength on the Eastern Front. The plan for Operation Husky called for the assault of Sicily by two Allied armies, one landing on the south-eastern and one on the central southern coast. The amphibious assaults were to be supported by gunfire, as well as tactical bombing, interdiction. As such, the operation required a complex structure, incorporating land, naval. The overall commander was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied forces in North Africa, British General Sir Harold Alexander acted as his second-in-command and as the 15th Army Group commander. The American Major General Walter Bedell Smith was appointed as Eisenhowers Chief of Staff, the overall Naval Force Commander was the British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. The Allied land forces were from the American, British and Canadian armies, the Eastern Task Force was led by General Sir Bernard Montgomery and consisted of the British Eighth Army. The Western Task Force was commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton, the two task force commanders reported to Alexander as commander of the 15th Army Group. Seventh Army consisted initially of three divisions, organized under II Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley. Middleton, sailed from the United States via Oran in Algeria, the 2nd Armored Division, under Major General Hugh Joseph Gaffey, also sailing from Oran, was to be a floating reserve and be fed into combat as required. On 15 July, Patton reorganized his command into two corps by creating a new Provisional Corps headquarters, commanded by his deputy army commander, Major General Geoffrey Keyes. The two divisions of XIII Corps, the 5th and 50th Infantry Divisions, commanded by Major-Generals Horatio Berney-Ficklin and Sidney Kirkman and this request was granted by the British, displacing the veteran British 3rd Infantry Division. The Red Patch Division was added to Leeses XXX Corps to become part of the British Eighth Army, in addition to the amphibious landings, airborne troops were to be flown in to support both the Western and Eastern Task Forces. To the east, the British 1st Airborne Division, commanded by Major-General George F. Hopkinson, was to seize vital bridges and high ground in support of the British Eighth Army. The initial plan dictated that the U. S. 82nd Airborne Division, Allied naval forces were also grouped into two task forces to transport and support the invading armies

12.
Sicily
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Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous Region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands, Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, the island has a typical Mediterranean climate. The earliest archaeological evidence of activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region after the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, and about 16 km wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, the terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the ranges of Madonie,2,000 m, Nebrodi,1,800 m. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast, in the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains,1,000 m. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions and it currently stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions, the mountain is 21 m lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps, Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, the three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant

13.
British Military Administration (Libya)
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The British Military Administration of Libya was the control of the regions of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania of the former Italian Libya by the British from 1942 until the Libyan independence in 1951. It was part of the administration of Libya. In November 1942, the Allied forces retook Cyrenaica, by February 1943, the last German and Italian soldiers were driven from Libya and the allied occupation of Libya began. Tripolitania and Cyrenaica remained under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan, in 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal in 1947 of some aspects of foreign control. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy, which hoped to maintain the colony of Tripolitania and France, in June 1948, anti-Jewish rioters in Libya killed another 12 Jews and destroyed 280 Jewish homes. The fear and insecurity which arose from these attacks and the founding of the state of Israel led many Jews to flee Libya. From 1948 to 1951,30,972 Libyan Jews moved to Israel, by the 1970s, the rest of Libyan Jews were evacuated to Italy. Disposition of Italian colonial holdings was a question that had to be considered before the peace treaty ending the war with Italy could be completed. The United States suggested a trusteeship for the country under control of the United Nations, whose charter had become effective in October 1945. The Soviet Union proposed separate provincial trusteeships, claiming Tripolitania for itself and assigning Fezzan to France, France, seeing no end to the discussions, advocated the return of the territory to Italy. To break the impasse, Britain finally recommended immediate independence for Libya, in 1949, the Emirate of Cyrenaica was created and only Tripolitania remained under direct British military administration. A year later, in 1950, it was granted instead of military administration. In accordance with the constitution the new country had a government with the three states of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan having autonomy. The kingdom also had three cities, Tripoli, Benghazi and Bayda. Two years after independence, on 28 March 1953, Libya joined the Arab League, when Libya declared its independence it was the first country to achieve independence through the United Nations and one of the first former European possessions in Africa to gain independence. Italian Libya Allied occupation of Libya

14.
Commonwealth of Nations
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The Commonwealth of Nations, also known as simply the Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of 52 member states that are mostly former territories of the British Empire. The Commonwealth dates back to the century with the decolonisation of the British Empire through increased self-governance of its territories. It was formally constituted by the London Declaration in 1949, which established the states as free. The symbol of free association is Queen Elizabeth II who is the Head of the Commonwealth. The Queen is also the monarch of 16 members of the Commonwealth, the other Commonwealth members have different heads of state,31 members are republics and five are monarchies with a different monarch. Member states have no obligation to one another. Instead, they are united by language, history, culture and their values of democracy, free speech, human rights. These values are enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter and promoted by the quadrennial Commonwealth Games, the Commonwealth covers more than 29,958,050 km2, 20% of the worlds land area, and spans all six inhabited continents. She declared, So, it marks the beginning of that free association of independent states which is now known as the Commonwealth of Nations. As long ago as 1884, however, Lord Rosebery, while visiting Australia, had described the changing British Empire—as some of its colonies became more independent—as a Commonwealth of Nations. Conferences of British and colonial prime ministers occurred periodically from the first one in 1887, the Commonwealth developed from the imperial conferences. Newfoundland never did, as on 16 February 1934, with the consent of its parliament, Newfoundland later joined Canada as its 10th province in 1949. Australia and New Zealand ratified the Statute in 1942 and 1947 respectively, after World War II ended, the British Empire was gradually dismantled. Most of its components have become independent countries, whether Commonwealth realms or republics, there remain the 14 British overseas territories still held by the United Kingdom. In April 1949, following the London Declaration, the word British was dropped from the title of the Commonwealth to reflect its changing nature, burma and Aden are the only states that were British colonies at the time of the war not to have joined the Commonwealth upon independence. Hoped for success was reinforced by such achievements as climbing Mount Everest in 1953, breaking the four minute mile in 1954, however, the humiliation of the Suez Crisis of 1956 badly hurt morale of Britain and the Commonwealth as a whole. More broadly, there was the loss of a role of the British Empire. That role was no longer militarily or financially feasible, as Britains withdrawal from Greece in 1947 painfully demonstrated, Britain itself was now just one part of the NATO military alliance in which the Commonwealth had no role apart from Canada

15.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government

16.
British Raj
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The British Raj was the rule by the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India, the resulting political union was also called the Indian Empire and after 1876 issued passports under that name. It lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign states, the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan and this area is very diverse, containing the Himalayan mountains, fertile floodplains, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, a long coastline, tropical dry forests, arid uplands, and the Thar desert. In addition, at times, it included Aden, Lower Burma, Upper Burma, British Somaliland. Burma was separated from India and directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948, among other countries in the region, Ceylon was ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. Ceylon was part of Madras Presidency between 1793 and 1798, the kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them and were recognised by the British as independent states. The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861, however. The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965, India during the British Raj was made up of two types of territory, British India and the Native States. In general, the term British India had been used to also to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858. The term has also used to refer to the British in India. The terms Indian Empire and Empire of India were not used in legislation, the monarch was known as Empress or Emperor of India and the term was often used in Queen Victorias Queens Speeches and Prorogation Speeches. The passports issued by the British Indian government had the words Indian Empire on the cover, in addition, an order of knighthood, the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, was set up in 1878. At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor, during the partition of Bengal the new provinces of Assam and East Bengal were created as a Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became, Assam, Bengal, Bihar, there were 565 princely states when India and Pakistan became independent from Britain in August 1947. The princely states did not form a part of British India, the larger ones had treaties with Britain that specified which rights the princes had, in the smaller ones the princes had few rights. Within the princely states external affairs, defence and most communications were under British control, the British also exercised a general influence over the states internal politics, in part through the granting or withholding of recognition of individual rulers. Although there were nearly 600 princely states, the majority were very small

17.
Southern Rhodesia
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The Colony of Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa from 1923 to 1980, the predecessor state of modern Zimbabwe. After a period of interim British control following the Lancaster House Agreement in December 1979, initially, the territory was referred to as South Zambezia, a reference to the River Zambezi, until the name Rhodesia came into use in 1895. This was in honour of Cecil Rhodes, the British empire-builder, Southern was first used in 1898 and dropped from normal usage in 1964, on the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Rhodesia then remained the name of the country until the creation of Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979, legally, from the British perspective, the name Southern Rhodesia continued to be used until 18 April 1980, when the Republic of Zimbabwe was promulgated. The British government agreed that Rhodes company, the British South Africa Company, queen Victoria signed the charter in 1889. A Legislative Council was created in 1899 to manage the companys affairs, with a minority of elected seats. Prior to about 1918, the opinion among the electorate supported continued BSAC rule but opinion changed because of the development of the country and increased settlement. In addition, a decision in the British courts that land not in private ownership belonged to the British Crown rather than the BSAC gave great impetus to the campaign for self-government. In the resulting treaty government self-government, Crown lands which were sold to settlers allowed those settlers the right to vote in the self-governing colony, the territory north of the Zambezi was the subject of separate treaties with African chiefs, today, it forms the country of Zambia. The first BSAC Administrator for the part was appointed for Barotseland in 1897. The first BSAC Administrator for the part, North-Eastern Rhodesia, was appointed in 1895. The whites in the south of the river paid it scant regard though. This resulted in the formation of new movements for expanding the self-government of the Rhodesian people which saw BSAC rule as an impediment to further expansion, in view of the outcome of the referendum, the territory was annexed by the United Kingdom on 12 September 1923. Shortly after annexation, on 1 October 1923, the first constitution for the new Colony of Southern Rhodesia came into force, under this constitution Sir Charles Coghlan became the first Premier of Southern Rhodesia and upon his death in 1927 he was succeeded by Howard Unwin Moffat. During World War II, Southern Rhodesian military units participated on the side of the United Kingdom, Southern Rhodesian forces were involved on many fronts including the East and North African Campaigns, Italy, Madagascar and Burma. Southern Rhodesian forces had the highest loss ratio of any constituent element, colony, additionally, the Rhodesian pilots earned the highest number of decorations and ace appellations of any group within the Empire. This resulted in the Royal Family paying a state visit to the colony at the end of the war to thank the Rhodesian people. Economically, Southern Rhodesia developed an economy that was based on production of a few primary products, notably, chrome

18.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia

19.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day

20.
Dominion of New Zealand
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The Dominion of New Zealand was the historical successor to the Colony of New Zealand. It was a monarchy with a high level of self-government within the British Empire. New Zealand became a separate British Crown colony in 1841 and received responsible government with the Constitution Act in 1852. New Zealand chose not to part in Australian Federation and became the Dominion of New Zealand on 26 September 1907, Dominion Day. Dominion status was a mark of the political independence that had evolved over half a century through responsible government. Just under one million lived in New Zealand in 1907 and cities such as Auckland. The Dominion of New Zealand allowed the British government to shape its foreign policy, the 1923 and 1926 Imperial Conferences decided that New Zealand should be allowed to negotiate their own political treaties and the first commercial treaty was ratified in 1928 with Japan. When the Second World War broke out in 1939 the New Zealand government made its own decision to enter the war, in the post-war period, the term ‘Dominion’ has fallen into disuse. Full independence was granted with the Statute of Westminster in 1931, after much debate over lexicon, the term ‘Dominion’ was decided upon. Dominion status was anticipated to be a house between colonial status and full independence. The adoption of the designation of ‘Dominion’ would, raise the status of New Zealand stated Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward, Ward also had regional imperial ambitions. He hoped the new designation would remind the world that New Zealand was not part of Australia and it would dignify New Zealand, a country he thought was the natural centre for the government of the South Pacific. A royal proclamation granting New Zealand the designation of ‘Dominion’ was issued on 9 September 1907, on 26 September the Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, read the proclamation from the steps of Parliament, Edward R. & I. And We hereby give Our Commands to all Public Departments accordingly, given at Our Court at Buckingham Palace, this ninth day of September, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seven, and in the seventh year of Our Reign. God save the King Letters patent were issued to confirm New Zealands change in status, declaring that, there shall be a Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Our Dominion of New Zealand. Control over defence, constitutional amendments, and foreign affairs remained with the British government until the Statute of Westminster was adopted in 1947, Ward had thought that New Zealanders would be much gratified with the new title. However, Dominion status was received with limited enthusiasm and indifference from the general public, the shift from colony to Dominion was viewed as a change of name only. The general public were unable to discern any practical difference, Dominion status was symbolic and recognised the countrys shift to self-governance, but this change had been accomplished with the first responsible government in the 1850s

21.
Union of South Africa
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The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of four previously separate British colonies, Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Transvaal Colony and it included the territories formerly part of the Boer republics annexed in 1902, South African Republic and Orange Free State. The Union of South Africa was a dominion of the British Empire and it was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, with the Crown represented by a governor-general. The Union came to an end when the 1961 constitution was enacted, on 31 May 1961 the country became a republic and left the Commonwealth, under the new name Republic of South Africa. Unlike Canada and Australia, the Union of South Africa was a state, rather than a federation. A bicameral parliament was created, consisting of a House of Assembly and Senate, during the course of the Union the franchise changed on several occasions always to suit the needs of the government of the day. Bloemfontein and Pietermaritzburg were given financial compensation, the Union initially remained under the British Crown as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. With the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, the Union and other dominions became equal in status to the United Kingdom, the Monarch was represented in South Africa by a Governor-General, while effective power was exercised by the Executive Council, headed by the Prime Minister. Louis Botha, formerly a Boer general, was appointed first Prime Minister of the Union, heading a coalition representing the white Afrikaner, prosecutions before courts were instituted in the name of the Crown and government officials served in the name of the Crown. Some extremist Nationalist organisations, like the Ossewa Brandwag, openly supported Nazi Germany during the Second World War, the Afrikaner-dominated Government consequently withdrew South Africa from the Commonwealth. Natal, which had an English-speaking majority, voted against, following the referendum result, some whites in Natal even called for secession from the Union. Five years earlier, some 33,000 Natalians had signed the Natal Covenant in opposition to the plans for a republic, subsequently the National Party Government passed a Constitution that repealed the South Africa Act. The features of the Union were carried over with little change to the newly formed Republic. The decision to transform from a Union to Republic was narrowly decided in the referendum, the South Africa Act dealt with race in two specific provisions. Second it made native affairs a matter for the national government, the practice therefore was to establish a Minister of Native Affairs. Several previous unsuccessful attempts to unite the colonies were made, with proposed political models ranging from unitary, Sir George Grey, the Governor of Cape Colony from 1854 to 1861, decided that unifying the states of southern Africa would be mutually beneficial. He believed that a united South African Federation, under British control and his idea was greeted with cautious optimism in southern Africa, the Orange Free State agreed to the idea in principle and the Transvaal may also eventually have agreed. However, he was overruled by the British Colonial Office which ordered him to desist from his plans and his refusal to abandon the idea eventually led to him being recalled

22.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

23.
Free France
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It was set up in London in June 1940 and also organised and supported the Resistance in occupied France. On 27 October 1940, the Empire Defense Council was constituted to organise the rule of the territories in central Africa and it was replaced on 24 September 1941 by the French National Committee. After the reconquest of North Africa, this was in turn merged with de Gaulles rival general Henri Girauds command in Algiers to form the French Committee of National Liberation. Exile officially ended with the capture of Paris by the 2nd Armoured Free French Division and Resistance forces on 25 August 1944, the Free French fought Axis and Vichy regime troops and served on battlefronts everywhere from the Middle East to Indochina and North Africa. The Free French Navy operated as a force to the Royal Navy and, in the North Atlantic. Free French units also served in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, the French Army of Africa switched allegiance to Free France, and this caused the Axis to occupy Vichy in reaction. On 1 August 1943, LArmée dAfrique was formally united with the Free French Forces to form LArmée française de la Liberation. By mid-1944, the forces of this army numbered more than 400,000, and they participated in the Normandy landings, the Free French government re-established a provisional republic after the liberation, preparing the ground for the Fourth Republic in 1946. Historically, an individual became Free French by enlisting in the military units organised by the CFN or by employment by the arm of the Committee. In many sources, Free French describes any French individual or unit that fought against Axis forces after the June 1940 armistice, postwar, to settle disputes over the Free French heritage, the French government issued an official definition of the term. Under this ministerial instruction of July 1953, only those who served with the Allies after the Franco-German armistice in 1940, between 27 May and 4 June, around 200,000 British soldiers and 140,000 French troops were evacuated from the beaches to safety in England. General Charles de Gaulle was a minister in the French cabinet during the Battle of France, as France was overwhelmed by the stunning German victory, he found himself part of a small group of politicians who argued against a negotiated surrender to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. That same day, the new French President of the Council, former First World War Marshal Philippe Pétain, De Gaulle briefly travelled to Bordeaux to continue the fight but, realising that Pétain would surrender, he returned to London on 17 June. On 18 June, General de Gaulle spoke to the French people via BBC radio, urging French soldiers, sailors and airmen to join in the fight against the Nazis and she has a great empire behind her. Together with the British Empire, she can form a bloc that controls the seas and she may, like England, draw upon the limitless industrial resources of the United States. In Vichys case those reasons were compounded with ideas of a Révolution nationale about stamping out Frances republican heritage. On 22 June 1940, Marshall Pétain signed an armistice with Germany, followed by a one with Italy on 24 June. After a parliamentary vote on 10 July, Pétain became leader of the newly established authoritarian regime known as Vichy France, despite de Gaulles call to continue the struggle, few French forces, at least initially, pledged their support

24.
Polish Armed Forces in the West
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The Polish Armed Forces in the West refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. After the fall of France, in June 1940, the formations were recreated in the United Kingdom, making a large contribution to the war effort, the Polish Armed Forces in the West was composed of army, air and naval forces. The Poles soon became shock troops in Allied service, most notably in the Battle of Monte Cassino, during the Italian Campaign, where the Polish flag was raised on the ruined abbey on May 18,1944. The Polish Armed Forces in the West were finally disbanded, after the war, in 1947, after Polands defeat in September-October 1939, the Polish government-in-exile quickly organized in France a new fighting force originally of about 80,000 men. Their units were subordinate to the French Army, in early 1940 a Polish Independent Highland Brigade took part in the Battles of Narvik in Norway. A Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade was formed in the French Mandate of Syria, the Polish Air Force in France comprised 86 aircraft in four squadrons, one and a half of the squadrons being fully operational while the rest were in various stages of training. Two Polish divisions took part in the defence of France, while a Polish motorized brigade, at the capitulation of France, General Władysław Sikorski was able to evacuate many Polish troops—probably over 20, 000—to the United Kingdom. I Corps was under the command of Scottish Command of the British Army. While in this area the Corps was reorganised and expanded, meanwhile, Polish fliers had an important role in the Battle of Britain. From these a 75, 000-strong army was formed in the Soviet Union under General Władysław Anders and this army, successively gathered in Bouzoulouk, Samarkand, was later ferried from Krasnovodsk across the Caspian Sea to the Middle East where Polish II Corps was formed. By the end of the Second World War, they were 195,000 strong, after the German Instrument of Surrender,1945, Polish troops took part in occupation duties in the Western Allied Occupation Zones in Germany. A Polish town was created, it was first named Lwow, Polish troops were incorporated into the 1945 top secret contingency plan, Operation Unthinkable, the hypothetical attack on the Soviet Union that would have led to an independent Poland. By 1945, there was growing sentiment in Britain, particularly among the trade unions which feared competition for jobs from Polish immigrants. At the same time, there was British and American concern about a state being built in Poland. Argentina and Brazil were also reported ready to offer them homes, Anders argued that he could not advise the soldiers to return to Poland unless the Polish Government promised elections this spring. Bevin, too, wanted immediate Polish elections, but both men knew that the chances were becoming slimmer, in Poland the split between the Communist-Socialist groups and shrewd Stanislaw Mikolajczyks Polish Peasant Party was deepening. Security Police raids on Peasant Party headquarters were reported last week, nevertheless, Bevin argued that, elections or no, the Poles in Anders army should go home. In January 1946 Bevin protested against killings by the Polish provisional government, in February 1946, Time reported Britains Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin told a tense House of Commons last week that terror had become an instrument of national policy in the new Poland

25.
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
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The name came to be used by other World War II as they subsequently recognized it. The Committee was originally created by the former Czechoslovak President, Edvard Beneš in Paris, France, unsuccessful negotiations with France for diplomatic status, as well as the impending Nazi occupation of France, forced the Committee to withdraw to London in 1940. From there, it moved to Aston Abbots, Buckinghamshire in 1941 and it was the legitimate government for Czechoslovakia throughout the Second World War. A specifically anti-Fascist government, it sought to reverse the Munich Agreement and the subsequent German occupation of Czechoslovakia, as such it was ultimately considered, by those countries that recognized it, the legal continuation of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia. Seeing the end of the Republic as a fait accompli, Edvard Beneš resigned as president of the First Czechoslovak Republic one week after the Munich Agreement ceded the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany, while there, he was urged to quickly return to Europe to organize some kind of government-in-exile. He therefore returned to Europe in July to live in Paris along with other key players in his former administration. It was in fact France itself that proved the greatest obstacle to accepting the Committee as a full government-in-exile, the government of Édouard Daladier was ambivalent towards the ambitions of the Committee and of Czechoslovakia in general. Though he had seen the appeasement of Hitler as the road to war. After the war came, he and his government dithered over whether the Soviet or Nazi threat was the greater, likewise, though he extended recognition to the Committee as a non-governmental agency, his government was non-committal to Beneš himself, and saw many possibilities for a post-war Czechoslovakia. One of its reservations about giving governmental status to Beneš, was the fact of the murky situation in the then-independent Slovakia. The French government of the winter of 1939/40 felt that Beneš was not necessarily speaking for all Czechoslovaks, frances diplomacy towards Beneš was therefore agile. It avoided any direct expression of support for the Beneš Committees desire to return to the First Republic, however, as Beneš was the key to getting military support from the well-trained Czechoslovak army, France was in fact the first nation to conclude a treaty with the Committee. The 2 October 1939 agreement between France and Beneš allowed for the reconstitution of the Czechoslovak army on French territory, ultimately, units of the First Division of the Czechoslovak Army fought alongside their hosts in the final stages of the Battle of France. It was the failure of the Allied military forces in battle which most directly helped the ambitions of the Beneš Committee. With the fall of France, the views of the newly appointed prime minister Winston Churchill took predominance over the concerns of the waning Third Republic. He was very much clearer than his predecessor Chamberlain with respect to Czechoslovak affairs, thus, they pressed the British in April 1941 for even greater clarity. On the 18th of that month, they sent a letter to the British requesting that their agreements be concluded, as before September,1938, British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden gave such assent on 18 July 1941. The United States and the Soviet Union were effectively forced to do the later in the year

26.
Kingdom of Greece
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The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 at the Convention of London by the Great Powers. It was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Constantinople, where it also secured full independence from the Ottoman Empire and this event also marked the birth of the first, fully independent, Greek state since the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in the mid-15th century. The Kingdom succeeded from the Greek provisional governments after the Greek War of Independence, in 1924 the monarchy was abolished, and the Second Hellenic Republic was established. The restored Kingdom of Greece lasted from 1935 to 1973, the Kingdom was again dissolved in the aftermath of the seven-year military dictatorship, and the Third Republic, the current Greek government, came to be. Most of Greece gradually became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, the Ottoman advance into Greece was preceded by victory over the Serbs to its north. This was followed by a draw in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, with no further threat by the Serbs and the subsequent Byzantine civil wars, the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453 and advanced southwards into Greece, capturing Athens in 1458. The Greeks held out in the Peloponnese until 1460, and the Venetians and Genoese clung to some of the islands, the mountains of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks to flee foreign rule and engage in guerrilla warfare. Cyprus fell in 1571, and the Venetians retained Crete until 1670, the Ionian Islands were only briefly ruled by the Ottomans, and remained primarily under the rule of Venice. In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire, following a protracted struggle, the autonomy of Greece was first recognized by the Great Powers in 1828, full independence was recognized in 1830. Count Ioannis Kapodistrias became Governor of Greece in 1827, but was assassinated in 1831, at the insistence of the Powers, the 1832 Treaty of London made Greece a monarchy. Pedro of Braganza, Prince Royal of Portugal, Brazil, Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria was chosen as its first King. Otto arrived at the capital, Nafplion, in 1833 aboard a British warship. Ottos reign would prove troubled, but managed to last for 30 years before he and his wife, Queen Amalia, left the way they came, nevertheless, they laid the foundations of a Greek administration, army, justice system and education system. Otto was sincere in his desire to give Greece good government, in addition, the new Kingdom tried to eliminate the traditional banditry, something that in many cases meant conflict with some old revolutionary fighters who continued to exercise this practice. But Greece still had no legislature and no constitution, Greek discontent grew until a revolt broke out in Athens in September 1843. Otto agreed to grant a constitution, and convened a National Assembly which met in November, the new constitution created a bicameral parliament, consisting of an Assembly and a Senate. Power then passed into the hands of a group of politicians, Greek politics in the 19th century was dominated by the national question. Greeks dreamed of liberating them all and reconstituting a state embracing all the Greek lands and this was called the Great Idea, and it was sustained by almost continuous rebellions against Ottoman rule in Greek-speaking territories, particularly Crete, Thessaly and Macedonia

27.
Kingdom of Italy
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The state was founded as a result of the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered its legal predecessor state. Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia in 1866, Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882, victory in the war gave Italy a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations. Fascist Italy is the era of National Fascist Party rule from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as head of government, according to Payne, Fascist regime passed through several relatively distinct phases. The first phase was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, then came the second phase, the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper from 1925 to 1929. The third phase, with activism, was 1929–34. The war itself was the phase with its disasters and defeats. Italy was allied with Nazi Germany in World War II until 1943 and it switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini and shutting down the Fascist party in areas controlled by the Allied invaders. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the referendum of 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdoms territory progressed under Italian re-unification until 1870, the state for a long period of time did not include Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded, the Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy. Executive power belonged to the monarch, as executed through appointed ministers, two chambers of parliament restricted the monarchs power—an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of Deputies. The kingdoms constitution was the Statuto Albertino, the governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament, members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, if not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies. After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation into large, regional, Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government in a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists and classical liberals

28.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943

29.
Vichy France
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Vichy France is the common name of the French State headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. In particular, it represents the southern, unoccupied Free Zone that governed the southern part of the country, from 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of France as a whole, Germany militarily occupied northern France. Thus, while Paris remained the de jure capital of France, following the Allied landings in French North Africa in November 1942, southern France was also militarily occupied by Germany and Italy. The Vichy government remained in existence, but as a de facto client and it vanished in late 1944 when the Allies occupied all of France. After being appointed Premier by President Albert Lebrun, Marshal Pétain ordered the French Governments military representatives to sign an armistice with Germany on 22 June 1940, Pétain subsequently established an authoritarian regime when the National Assembly of the French Third Republic granted him full powers on 10 July 1940. At that point, the Third Republic was dissolved, calling for National Regeneration, the French Government at Vichy reversed many liberal policies and began tight supervision of the economy, with central planning a key feature. Labour unions came under government control. The independence of women was reversed, with a put on motherhood. Paris lost its status in European art and culture. The media were tightly controlled and stressed virulent anti-Semitism, and, after June 1941, the French State maintained nominal sovereignty over the whole of French territory, but had effective full sovereignty only in the unoccupied southern zone libre. It had limited and only civil authority in the zones under military occupation. The occupation was to be a state of affairs, pending the conclusion of the war. The French Government at Vichy never joined the Axis alliance, Germany kept two million French soldiers prisoner, carrying out forced labour. They were hostages to ensure that Vichy would reduce its forces and pay a heavy tribute in gold, food. French police were ordered to round up immigrant Jews and other such as communists. Public opinion in some quarters turned against the French government and the occupying German forces over time, when it became clear that Germany was losing the war, and resistance to them increased. Most of the legal French governments leaders at Vichy fled or were subject to show trials by the GPRF, thousands of collaborators were summarily executed by local communists and the Resistance in so-called savage purges. The last of the French State exiles were captured in the Sigmaringen enclave by de Gaulles French 1st Armoured Division in April 1945, in 1940, Marshal Pétain was known as a First World War hero, the victor of the battle of Verdun

30.
Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis
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He then commanded the 15th Army Group for the capture of Sicily and again in Italy before receiving his field marshals baton and being made Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean. Alexander proved to be enthusiastic about the Canadian wilderness and was a governor general with Canadians. He was the last non-Canadian-born governor general before the appointment of Adrienne Clarkson in 1999, Alexander retired in 1954 and died in 1969. Alexander was born in London into a family from County Tyrone of Ulster-Scots descent. He was the son of The Earl and Countess of Caledon. Alexander was educated at Hawtreys and Harrow School, there participating as the 11th batsman in the sensational Fowlers Match against Eton College in 1910, though Alexander toyed with the notion of becoming an artist, he went instead on to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In September 1911, Alexander entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the British Armys Irish Guards. He was promoted to lieutenant in December 1912, Alexander spent most of the First World War on the Western Front. As a 22-year-old platoon commander in the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards and he took part in the retreat from Mons and was wounded at First Ypres and invalided home. He was promoted to captain on 15 November 1914 and permanent captain in the newly raised 2nd Battalion on 7 February the following year. He then returned to the 2nd Battalion as a officer and, in January 1916. For service in the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916, he was, in October, appointed to the Distinguished Service Order, the citation for which read, For conspicuous gallantry in action. He was the life and soul of the attack, and throughout the day led forward not only his own men but men of all regiments and he held the trenches gained in spite of heavy machine gun fire. In the same month, Alexander was further honoured with induction into the French Légion dhonneur, on 10 December 1916, his twenty-fifth birthday, Alexander became second-in-command of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards as an acting major. By May, he was briefly acting CO of the 1st Battalion, as a lieutenant colonel. He became a permanent major on 1 August 1917 and was promoted acting lieutenant colonel. Alexander commanded his battalion at Third Ypres, where he was wounded, then at Bourlon Wood. Alexander, between 23 and 30 March 1918, had to command of the 4th Guards Brigade

31.
Claude Auchinleck
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Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck GCB, GCIE, CSI, DSO, OBE was a British Army commander during the Second World War. He was a soldier who spent much of his military career in India. He served as Commander-in-Chief India until Partition in 1947, when he assumed the role of Supreme Commander of all British forces in India and Pakistan until late 1948. Born at 89 Victoria Road in Aldershot, the son of Colonel John Auchinleck and Mary Auchinleck, Auchinleck attended Eagle House School at Crowthorne and then Wellington College on scholarships. He was promoted to lieutenant on 21 April 1905 and then spent the two years in Tibet and Sikkim before moving to Benares in 1907 where he caught diphtheria. After briefly serving with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers at Aldershot he returned Benares in 1909, Auchinleck saw active service in the First World War and was deployed with his regiment to defend the Suez Canal, in February 1915 he was in action against the Turks at Ismaïlia. His regiment moved into Aden to counter the Turkish threat there in July 1915, the 6th Indian Division, of which the 62nd Punjabis were a part, was landed at Basra on 31 December 1915 for the Mesopotamian campaign. In July 1916 Auchinleck was promoted acting major and made second in command of the regiment. He took part in a series of attacks on the Turks at the Battle of Hanna in January 1916 and was one of the few British officers in his regiment to survive these actions. He became acting commanding officer of his regiment in February 1917 and led his regiment at the Second Battle of Kut in February 1917, Auchinleck attended the Staff College, Quetta between 1920 and 1921. He married Jessie Stewart in 1921, Jessie had been born in 1900 in Tacoma, Washington, to Alexander Stewart, head of the Blue Funnel Line that plied the west coast of the United States. When he died about 1919, their mother took her, her twin brother Alan and her younger brother Hepburne back to Bun Rannoch, holidaying at Grasse on the French Riviera, Auchinleck, who was on leave from India at the time, met Jessie on the tennis courts. She was a high-spirited, blue-eyed beauty, things moved quickly, and they were married within five months. Sixteen years younger than Auchinleck, Jessie became known as the little American girl in India and he attended the Imperial Defence College in 1927 and, having been promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 21 January 1929 he was appointed to command his regiment. Promoted to full colonel on 1 February 1930 with seniority from 15 November 1923, he became an instructor at the Staff College, Quetta in February 1930 where he remained until April 1933. On leaving his command in April 1936 Auchinleck was on the unemployed list until September 1936 when he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff. He was then appointed to command the Meerut District in India in July 1938 and he received promotion to acting lieutenant-general on 1 February 1940 and to the substantive rank of lieutenant-general on 16 March 1940. In May 1940 Auchinleck took over command of the Anglo-French ground forces in Norway, Montgomery later wrote, In the 5th Corps I first served under Auchinleck

32.
Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell
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Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, CMG, MC, KStJ, PC was a senior officer of the British Army. He served in the Second Boer War, the Bazar Valley Campaign and he served as Commander-in-Chief, India, from July 1941 until June 1943 and then served as Viceroy of India until his retirement in February 1947. His headmaster, Dr. Fearon, had advised his father there was no need to send him into the Army as he had sufficient ability to make his way in other walks of life. After graduating from Sandhurst, Wavell was commissioned on 8 May 1901 into the Black Watch, in 1903, he was transferred to India and, having been promoted to lieutenant on 13 August 1904, he fought in the Bazar Valley Campaign of February 1908. In January 1909 was seconded from his regiment to be a student at the Staff College and he was one of only two in his class to graduate with an A grade. In 1911, he spent a year as an observer with the Russian Army to learn Russian. In April 1912 he became a General Staff Officer Grade 3 in the Russian Section of the War Office, in July, he was granted the temporary rank of captain and became GSO3 at the Directorate of Military Training. On 20 March 1913 Wavell was promoted to the rank of captain. Wavell was working at the War Office during the Curragh Incident, however, he was also concerned at the Armys effectively intervening in politics, not least as there would be an even greater appearance of bias when the Army was used against industrial unrest. Wavell was working as an officer when the First World War began. He was wounded in the Second Battle of Ypres of 1915, losing his left eye, in October 1915 he became a GSO2 in the 64th Highland Division. In December 1915, after he had recovered, Wavell was returned to General HQ in France as a GSO2 and he was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 8 May 1916. In October 1916 Wavell was graded General Staff Officer Grade 1 as a lieutenant colonel. In June 1917, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and continued to work as a staff officer. In January 1918 Wavell received a staff appointment as Assistant Adjutant & Quartermaster General working at the Supreme War Council in Versailles. Wavell was given a number of assignments between the wars, though like many officers he had to accept a reduction in rank, in May 1920 he relinquished the temporary rank of brigadier general, reverting to brevet lieutenant colonel. In March 1932, he was appointed ADC to the King, however, there was a shortage of jobs for major generals at this time and in January 1934, on relinquishing command of his brigade, he found himself unemployed on half pay once again. By the end of the year, although still on half pay, Wavell had been designated to command 2nd Division, in March 1935, he took command of his division

33.
Bernard Montgomery
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He saw action in the First World War as a junior officer of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. At Méteren, near the Belgian border at Bailleul, he was shot through the lung by a sniper. He returned to the Western Front as a staff officer. He also took part in the Battle of Passchendaele in late 1917 before finishing the war as chief of staff of the 47th Division. During the Second World War he commanded the British Eighth Army from August 1942 in the Western Desert until the final Allied victory in Tunisia in May 1943 and this command included the Second Battle of El Alamein, a turning point in the Western Desert Campaign. He subsequently commanded the British Eighth Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily and he was in command of all Allied ground forces during Operation Overlord from the initial landings until after the Battle of Normandy. He then continued in command of the 21st Army Group for the rest of the campaign in North West Europe, as such he was the principal field commander for the failed airborne attempt to bridge the Rhine at Arnhem, and the Allied Rhine crossing. On 4 May 1945 he took the German surrender at Lüneburg Heath in Northern Germany, after the war he became Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine in Germany and then Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He then served as Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO in Europe until his retirement in 1958. Montgomery was born in Kennington, Surrey, in 1887, the child of nine, to an Ulster-Scots Church of Ireland minister, The Reverend Henry Montgomery. The Montgomerys, an Ascendancy gentry family, were the County Donegal branch of the Clan Montgomery and he was probably a descendant of Colonel Alexander Montgomery. Bernards mother, Maud, was the daughter of The V, rev. Frederic William Canon Farrar, the famous preacher, and was eighteen years younger than her husband. After the death of Sir Robert Montgomery, Henry inherited the Montgomery ancestral estate of New Park in Moville in Inishowen in Ulster. There was still £13,000 to pay on a mortgage, a debt in the 1880s. Despite selling off all the farms that were at Ballynally, there was enough to keep up New Park. It was a relief of some magnitude when, in 1889, Henry was made Bishop of Tasmania, then still a British colony. Bishop Montgomery considered it his duty to spend as much time as possible in the areas of Tasmania and was away for up to six months at a time. While he was away, his wife, still in her mid-twenties, gave her children constant beatings, of Bernards siblings, Sibyl died prematurely in Tasmania, and Harold, Donald and Una all emigrated

34.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Dwight David Ike Eisenhower was an American politician and Army general who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a general in the United States Army during World War II. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43, in 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Eisenhower was of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and was raised in a family in Kansas by parents with a strong religious background. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Doud, after World War II, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman and then accepted the post of President at Columbia University. Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race as a Republican to counter the non-interventionism of Senator Robert A. Taft, campaigning against communism, Korea and he won in a landslide, defeating Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson and temporarily upending the New Deal Coalition. Eisenhower was the first U. S. president to be constitutionally term-limited under the 22nd Amendment, Eisenhowers main goals in office were to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. He ordered coups in Iran and Guatemala, Eisenhower gave major aid to help the French in the First Indochina War, and after the French were defeated he gave strong financial support to the new state of South Vietnam. Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the space race. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower condemned the Israeli, British and French invasion of Egypt and he also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action. Eisenhower sent 15,000 U. S. troops to Lebanon to prevent the government from falling to a Nasser-inspired revolution during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident. On the domestic front, he covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege and he otherwise left most political activity to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Eisenhower was a conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security. Eisenhowers two terms saw considerable economic prosperity except for a decline in 1958. Voted Gallups most admired man twelve times, he achieved widespread popular esteem both in and out of office, since the late 20th century, consensus among Western scholars has consistently held Eisenhower as one of the greatest U. S. Presidents. The Eisenhauer family migrated from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland, to North America, first settling in York, Pennsylvania, in 1741, accounts vary as to how and when the German name Eisenhauer was anglicized to Eisenhower. Eisenhowers Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn

35.
George S. Patton
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General George Smith Patton Jr. was a senior officer of the United States Army who commanded the U. S. Seventh Army in the Mediterranean and European theaters of World War II, Third Army in France and Germany following the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Born in 1885 to a family with a military background, Patton attended the Virginia Military Institute. He studied fencing and designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber, more known as the Patton Sword. Patton first saw combat during the Pancho Villa Expedition in 1916, in the interwar period, Patton remained a central figure in the development of armored warfare doctrine in the U. S. Army, serving in numerous staff positions throughout the country. Rising through the ranks, he commanded the 2nd Armored Division at the time of the American entry into World War II, Seventh Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was the first Allied commander to reach Messina. Patton returned to command the Third Army following the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and he led the relief of beleaguered American troops at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, and advanced his Third Army into Nazi Germany by the end of the war. After the war, Patton became the governor of Bavaria. He commanded the United States Fifteenth Army for slightly more than two months, Patton died in Germany on December 21,1945, as a result of injuries from an automobile accident twelve days earlier. Pattons colorful image, hard-driving personality and success as a commander were at times overshadowed by his public statements. His philosophy of leading from the front and his ability to inspire troops with vulgarity-ridden speeches, such as an address to the Third Army. His strong emphasis on rapid and aggressive offensive action proved effective, while Allied leaders held sharply differing opinions on Patton, he was regarded highly by his opponents in the German High Command. A popular, award-winning biographical film released in 1970 helped transform Patton into an American hero, George Smith Patton Jr. was born on November 11,1885 in San Gabriel, California, to George Smith Patton Sr. and his wife Ruth Wilson. Patton had a sister, Anne, who was nicknamed Nita. The family was of Irish, Scots-Irish, English, and Welsh ancestry and his great grandmother came from an aristocratic Welsh family, descended from many Welsh lords of Glamorgan, which had an extensive military background. Patton believed he had former lives as a soldier and took pride in mystical ties with his ancestors, though not directly descended from George Washington, Patton traced some of his English colonial roots to George Washingtons great-grandfather. He was also descended from Englands King Edward I through Edwards son Edmund of Woodstock, family belief held the Pattons were descended from sixteen barons who had signed the Magna Carta. Patton believed in reincarnation, and his ancestry was very important to him, the first Patton in America was Robert Patton, born in Ayr, Scotland

36.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church

37.
Italo Balbo
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After serving in World War I, Balbo became the leading Fascist organizer in his home region of Ferrara. He was one of the four architects of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini. In 1926, he began the task of building the Italian Royal Air Force and took a role in popularizing aviation in Italy. In 1933, perhaps to relieve tensions surrounding him in Italy, he was given the government of Italian Libya, Balbo was the only leading Fascist to oppose both anti-Jewish racial laws and Mussolinis alliance with Nazi Germany. Early in World War II, he was killed by fire when his plane was shot down over Tobruk by Italian anti-aircraft guns. In 1896, Balbo was born in Quartesana in the Kingdom of Italy, Balbo was very politically active from an early age. At only 14 years of age, he attempted to join in a revolt in Albania under Ricciotti Garibaldi, as World War I broke out and Italy declared its neutrality, Balbo supported joining the war on the side of the Allies. He joined in several pro-war rallies, at the end of the war, Balbo had earned one bronze and two silver medals for military valour and reached the rank of Captain due to courage under fire. After the war, Balbo completed the studies he had begun in Florence in 1914–15 and he obtained a law degree and a degree in Social Sciences. His final thesis was written on the economic and social thought of Giuseppe Mazzini, Balbo was a Republican, but he hated Socialists and the unions and cooperatives associated with them. Balbo returned to his town to work as a bank clerk. In 1921, Balbo joined the newly created National Fascist Party and he began to organize Fascist gangs and formed his own group nicknamed Celibano, after their favorite drink. They broke strikes for local landowners and attacked communists and socialists in Portomaggiore, Ravenna, Modena, the group once raided the Estense Castle in Ferrara. Italo Balbo had become one of the Ras, adopted from an Ethiopian title somewhat equivalent to a duke, of the Fascist hierarchy by 1922, the Ras typically wished for a more decentralized Fascist Italian state to be formed, against Mussolinis wishes. At 26 years of age, Balbo was the youngest of the Quadrumvirs, the Quadrumvirs were Michele Bianchi, Cesare Maria De Vecchi, Emilio De Bono, and Balbo. Mussolini himself would not participate in the operation that ultimately brought Italy under Fascist rule. In 1923, as one of the Quadrumvirs, Balbo became a member of the Grand Council of Fascism. This same year, he was charged with the murder of anti-Fascist parish priest Giovanni Minzoni in Argenta and he fled to Rome and in 1924 became General Commander of the Fascist militia and undersecretary for National Economy in 1925

38.
Rodolfo Graziani
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A dedicated fascist, he was a key figure in the Italian military during the reign of Victor Emmanuel III. Graziani played an important role in the consolidation and expansion of Italys empire during the 1920s and 1930s, first in Libya and he became infamous among the other colonial powers for repressive measures that led to high loss of life among civilians. In February 1937, after an attempt during a ceremony in Addis Ababa. Shortly after Italy entered World War II he returned to Libya as the commander of troops in Italian North Africa, in 1948, an Italian court sentenced him to 19 years imprisonment for collaboration with the Nazis, but he was released after serving only four months. He died in 1955, at his funeral there were nearly twenty thousands in a ceremony in Rome Rodolfo Graziani was born in Filettino in the province of Frosinone. In 1903, he decided to pursue a military career, Graziani was stationed in Italian Eritrea and served in the Italo-Turkish War, where he was promoted to Captain. He saw action in World War I and became the youngest Colonnello in the Regio Esercito, in the 1920s, Graziani was appointed by the new Fascist government to be commander the Italian forces in Libya. He was responsible for suppressing the Senussi rebellion, during this so-called pacification, he was responsible for the construction of several concentration camps and labor camps, where thousands of Libyan prisoners died. Some prisoners were killed by hanging, like Omar Mukhtar, or by shooting and his deeds earned him the nickname the Butcher of Fezzan among the Arabs, but he was called by the Italians the Pacifier of Libya. In 1930, he became Vice-Governor of Cyrenaica and held this position until 1934, in 1935, Graziani was made the Governor of Italian Somaliland. During the Second Italo-Abyssinian War in 1935 and 1936, Graziani was the commander of the southern front and his army invaded Ethiopia from Italian Somaliland and he commanded the Italian forces at the Battles of Genale Doria and the Ogaden. However, Grazianis efforts in the south were secondary to the invasion launched from Eritrea by Generale Emilio De Bono. It was Badoglio and not Graziani who entered Addis Ababa in triumph after his March of the Iron Will, but it was Graziani who said, The Duce will have Ethiopia, with or without the Ethiopians. Addis Ababa fell to Badoglio on 5 May 1936, Graziani had wanted to reach Harar before Badoglio reached Addis Ababa, but failed to do so. Even so, on 9 May, Graziani was awarded for his role as commander of the front with a promotion to the rank of Marshal of Italy. As a result, he held Ethiopian clerics in deep suspicion, after the war, Graziani was made Viceroy of Italian East Africa and Governor-General of Shewa / Addis Ababa. Graziani became known as the Butcher of Ethiopia, Grazianis suspicion of the Ethiopian Orthodox clergy had convinced him of the monks complicity in the attempt on his life. From 1939-1941, Graziani was the Commander-in-Chief of the General Staff of the Regio Esercito, from left to right, Karl Wolff, Reinhard Heydrich, Adelchi Serena, Heinrich Himmler, Emilio De Bono, Graziani, and Hans Georg von Mackensen

39.
Italo Gariboldi
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Italo Gariboldi was a senior officer in the Italian Royal Army before and during World War II. He was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross by German Führer Adolf Hitler, Gariboldi was born in Lodi, Lombardy. From the end of World War I and through the interwar Period, Gariboldi rose in the ranks and held various staff, regimental, in 1935, Gariboldi commanded the 30th Infantry Division Sabauda on the northern front during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. His division was part of the I Corps based in Eritrea, after Italy defeated Ethiopia in May 1936, Eritrea, Abyssinia, and Italian Somaliland were joined to form the colony of Italian East Africa on 1 June 1936. From 1939 to 1941, Gariboldi served as a commander in Marshal Italo Balbos Supreme Command – North Africa. When Italy declared war in June 1940, Gariboldi commanded the Italian Fifth Army stationed on the border with French Tunisia and he ultimately commanded both armies located in Libya. After the Battle of France ended, the Fifth Army became a source of men, parts, in December 1940, when the British launched Operation Compass, Gariboldi was in temporary command of the Tenth Army because General Mario Berti was on sick leave. Ultimately, he was given command of the Tenth Army after it was destroyed and Bertis replacement. On 25 March 1941, Gariboldi was promoted to Governor-General of Libya, by 19 July, Gariboldi himself was relieved because of his alleged lack of cooperation with Rommel. General Ettore Bastico took his place, from 1942 to 1943, Gariboldi commanded the Italian Army in Russia. He was in command of the Italian Army in Russia during the destruction of that army during the Battle of Stalingrad, in 1943, Gariboldi was in Italy when King Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Pietro Badoglio ousted dictator Benito Mussolini and then signed an armistice with the Allies. Like many members of the Italian military, Gariboldi was made a prisoner of war by the Germans, in 1944, he was condemned to death as a traitor. Later in 1944, Gariboldi was released from prison by the Allies and his son, Mario Gariboldi, followed his father in a military career

40.
Ugo Cavallero
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Ugo Cavallero was an Italian military commander before and during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany, born in Casale Monferrato, Piedmont, Cavallero had a privileged childhood as a member of the Italian nobility. After attending military school, Cavallero was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 1900, Cavallero later attended college and graduated in 1911, earning a degree in mathematics. Still in the army, Cavallero fought in Libya in 1913, during the Italo-Turkish War, in 1915, Cavallero was transferred to the Italian Supreme Command. A brilliant organizer and tactician, Cavallero became a Brigadier General, in this capacity, Cavallero was instrumental in forming plans that led to Italian victories at Piave and Vittorio Veneto during World War I. During his time as chief of the plan of Italian General Staff, he developed an antipathy with Pietro Badoglio, Cavallero retired from the army in 1919 but later rejoined in 1925, at which time he became Benito Mussolini’s Undersecretary of War. A committed fascist, Cavallero was made a senator in 1926, after leaving the army for a second time, Cavallero became involved in business and diplomatic enterprises throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s. Cavallero rejoined the army for the third and final time in 1937, promoted to Lieutenant General, he became Commander of the combined Italian forces in Italian East Africa in 1938 and was made a full General in 1940. While he managed to halt the Greek advance, Cavallero was unable to break the stalemate until the German intervention, in the meantime, his role as Chief of Staff was filled by General Alfredo Guzzoni. In January 1943, after the loss of the African campaign. In response to Cavalleros dismissal, members of the Fascist leadership like Galeazzo Ciano, openly hostile to him, after Mussolini’s government was toppled by the King, the newly appointed Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio ordered the arrest of Cavallero. In a document written in own defense, Cavallero claimed the merit of having opposed Mussolini and it seems, however, that he firmly expressed his will to refuse collaborating with the Germans. Knights Cross of the Iron Cross on 19 February 1942 as Generale di Corpo dArmata and Chief of the Defence Staff of the Royal Italian Army Royal Italian Army Royal Italian Army

41.
Ettore Bastico
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Ettore Bastico was an Italian military officer before and during World War II, as well as the commandant of the Jado concentration camp, in Libya, during the Holocaust. In addition to being a general of the Royal Italian Army and he held high commands during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the Spanish Civil War, and the North African Campaign. Bastico was born in Bologna, Italy, when he came of age, Bastico joined the Italian Army and fought in World War I. In 1928, Bastico was promoted to brigadier, at that time, the Kingdom of Italy was ruled by dictator Benito Mussolini. In this role, Bastico was a target of Giulio Douhet in Recapitulation, Douhet devotes many pages to critically examining six basic theories put forth by Bastico and how they relate to the future of an Independent Air Forces role in future wars. Bastico was promoted to general on 29 May 1932 and in 1935. In 1935, Bastico was the commander of the III Corps in Ethiopia, from 1936 to 1937, he was the commander of the II Corps. In 1937, during the stages of the Spanish Civil War, Bastico replaced Mario Roatta as the commander-in-chief of the Italian volunteer corps in Spain. The CTV was sent to help the Spanish Nationalists side in the war, from mid-1937, Basticos force fought in the Battle of Santander, a decisive victory for the Nationalists. In late 1937, Bastico was replaced by Mario Berti, in October 1937, Bastico received the rank of general, generale di corpo darmata designato darmata, the highest rank that could be assigned if Italy was not officially at war. In February 1939, the Italian volunteers left Spain and he was then assigned to the Second Army. Shortly after, Bastico was appointed commander of the new motorized Sixth Army, known at the Armata del Po, in 1939, Bastico was named senator of the Kingdom of Italy. When Italy entered World War II, Bastico was Governor-General of the Italian Aegean Islands, on 19 July 1941, Bastico was named commander over all Axis forces in North Africa, however, his command went largely unrecognized by the Germans and especially General Erwin Rommel. Bastico was promoted to Marshal of Italy on 12 August 1942, when Libya was lost to the Eighth Armys advance, since 2 February 1943 he was left without a command for the rest of the war. Bastico died in Rome at 96, after spending his last years studying history, at the time of his death, he was the last living Italian military officer to have held an Italian five-star-rank in an active capacity

42.
Pietro Badoglio
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In the years after World War I, in which he held several high ranks in the Italian Army, Badoglio exerted a constant effort in modifying official documents in order to hide his role in the defeat. Post-war, Badoglio was named as a Senator, but also remained in the army with special assignments to Romania, at first, he opposed Benito Mussolini and after 1922 was side-lined as ambassador to Brazil. A change of political heart soon returned him to Italy and a role in the army as Chief of Staff from 4 May 1924. On 25 June 1926, Badoglio was promoted to the rank of Marshal of Italy, Badoglio was the first unique governor of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from 1929 to 1933. During his governorship, he played a part in defeating the Libyan rebels. On 20 June 1930, Badoglio wrote to General Graziani, As for overall strategy, it is necessary to create a significant, I do not hide the significance and seriousness of this measure, which might be the ruin of the subdued population. But now the course has been set, and we must carry it out to the end, on 24 January 1932, Badoglio proclaimed the end of Libyan resistance for the first time since the Italian invasion in 1911. Badoglio asked for and was given permission to use chemical warfare, using as a pretext the torture and he employed mustard gas to effectively destroy the Ethiopian armies confronting him on the northern front. Badoglio commanded the Italian invasion army at the First Battle of Tembien, the Battle of Amba Aradam, the Second Battle of Tembien, on 31 March 1936, Badoglio defeated Emperor Haile Selassie commanding the last Ethiopian army on the northern front at the Battle of Maychew. On 26 April, with no Ethiopian resistance left between his forces and Addis Ababa, Badoglio launched his March of the Iron Will to take the Ethiopian capital city, by 2 May, Haile Selassie had fled the country. On 5 May 1936, Marshal Badoglio led the victorious Italian troops into Addis Ababa, Mussolini declared King Victor Emmanuel to be the Emperor of Ethiopia, and Ethiopia became part of the Italian Empire. On this occasion, Badoglio was appointed the first Viceroy and Governor General of Ethiopia, on 11 June 1936, Rodolfo Graziani replaced Badoglio as Viceroy and Governor General of Ethiopia. Badoglio returned to his duties as the Supreme Chief of the Italian General Staff, according to Time magazine, Badoglio even joined the Fascist Party in early June. Following the Italian armys poor performance in the invasion of Greece in December 1940, Badoglio was replaced by Ugo Cavallero. On 24 July 1943, as Italy had suffered several setbacks following the Allied invasion of Sicily in World War II, Mussolini summoned the Fascist Grand Council, the following day Il Duce was removed from government by King Victor Emmanuel III and arrested. On 3 September 1943, General Giuseppe Castellano signed the Italian armistice with the Allies in Cassibile on behalf of Badoglio, wary of the potentially hostile German response to the Armistice, Badoglio hesitated to formally announce the treaty. On 8 September 1943, the document was published by the Allies in the Badoglio Proclamation. The units of the Italian Royal Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force were generally surprised by the switch, on 23 September 1943, the longer version of the armistice was signed in Malta

43.
Giovanni Messe
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Giovanni Messe was an Italian general, politician, and field marshal. He is considered by many to have been the best Italian general of the Second World War, Messe was born in Mesagne, in the Province of Brindisi in the Apulia region of Italy on 10 December 1883. Giovanni Messe pursued a career in 1901. He saw action in the Italian conquest of Libya and in the First World War, emerging considerably decorated from these conflicts, he became aide-de-camp to King Victor Emmanuel III, holding this post from 1923 to 1927. From this date until 1935, Messe commanded a unit of Bersaglieri, in September 1935, Messe assumed command of a motorised brigade in Verona, with the rank of brigadier general. Following a successful period of service with this unit in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Messe was promoted to rank of major general, on April 1939, following the Italian invasion of Albania, Messe was appointed to serve under Albanias governor, General Ubaldo Soddu. Messe commanded a corps during the Greco-Italian War of late 1940 and early 1941, before winter had even set in however, the Italian forces were forced onto the defensive, as Greek forces launched a counter attack and moved into parts of Italian controlled Albania. In April 1941, with the help of the German Armed Forces, in other circumstances, the armoured warfare experience Messe possessed might have caused him to be given a command alongside Erwin Rommel in North Africa. But, instead, he was chosen to be the commander of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia, the CSIR was a mobile infantry and cavalry unit of the Italian army that took part in Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Initially, the number of Italian troops in southern Russia numbered around 60,000, Messe never thought that this force was properly outfitted or supplied for the extreme conditions of the Russian Front. By July 1942, the far larger Italian Army in Russia replaced the CSIR, on 1 November 1942 Messe left Russia. The number of Italian troops in Russia had grown to about 200,000, although the troops fought well during the initial summer campaign, they lacked anti-tank weaponry suitable in winter conditions. During the German defeat at Stalingrad, the campaign in the Soviet Union turned heavily against the Axis powers, alongside Romanian, Hungarian and German forces, the Italian army was severely mauled during Operation Saturn on the flanks of Stalingrad while trying to hold back the Soviet forces. In February 1943, Messe was appointed as the new commander of the Italo-German Tank Army formerly commanded by Erwin Rommel, the name was changed to 1st Italian Army in recognition of the fact that the army consisted of one German and three Italian corps. Rommel was promoted to the command of the new Army Group Africa, Messe fought a defensive campaign against the advancing American and British forces and was defeated at the Mareth Line. His continuous tactical delay of the Allied offensive could not prevent the defeat of the Axis in North Africa. On 12 May 1943 Messe was promoted to the rank of marshal of Italy. On 13 May, after the collapse of the 5th German Tank Army, the fall of Tunis and he served in this post with distinction until the wars end and then retired from the military in 1947 after 46 years of distinguished service

44.
Surrender (military)
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Surrender, in military terms, is the relinquishment of control over territory, combatants, fortifications, ships or armament to another power. A surrender may be accomplished peacefully, without fighting, or it may be the result of defeat in battle, a sovereign state may surrender following defeat in a war, usually by signing a peace treaty or capitulation agreement. A battlefield surrender, either by individuals or when ordered by officers, normally, a surrender will involve the handing over of weapons, the commanding officer of a surrendering force symbolically offers his sword to the victorious commander. Flags and ensigns are hauled down or furled, and ships colors are struck or the raising of a flag to the masts signals a surrender. When the parties agree to terms, the surrender may be conditional, that is, the leaders of the surrendering group negotiate privileges or compensation for the time, expense and loss of life saved by the victor through the stopping of resistance. Alternatively, in a surrender at discretion, the victor makes no promises of treatment, an early example of a military surrender is the defeat of Carthage by the Roman Empire at the end of the Second Punic War. Over time, generally accepted laws and customs of war have developed for such a situation, most of which are laid out in the Hague Convention of 1907. Normally, a belligerent will agree to surrender only if completely incapable of continuing hostilities. Traditionally, a ceremony was accompanied by the honors of war. The Third Geneva Convention states that prisoners of war should not be mistreated or abused, US Army policy, for example, requires that surrendered persons should be secured and safeguarded while being evacuated from the battlefield. While not a military law, the Code of the US Fighting Force disallows surrender unless all reasonable means of resistance exhausted. Certain death the only alternative, the Code states, I will never surrender of my own free will, if in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist. False surrender is a type of perfidy in the context of war and it is a war crime under Protocol I of the Geneva Convention. False surrenders are usually used to draw the enemy out of cover to attack them off guard, accounts of false surrender can be found relatively frequently throughout history. One of the more infamous examples was the false surrender of British troops at Kilmichael. Capitulation, an agreement in time of war for the surrender to an armed force of a particular body of troops. Debellatio occurs when a war ends because of the destruction of a belligerent state. No quarter occurs when a victor shows no clemency or mercy, under the laws of war, it is especially forbidden

45.
Erwin Rommel
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Erwin Rommel, popularly known as the Desert Fox, was a field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. Rommel was a decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the Pour le Mérite for his actions on the Italian Front. In World War II, he distinguished himself as the commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France and he later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Rommel supported the Nazi seizure of power and Adolf Hitler, although his attitude towards Nazi ideology, in 1944, Rommel was implicated in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. Due to Rommels status as a hero, Hitler desired to eliminate him quietly. Rommel was given a funeral, and it was announced that he had succumbed to his injuries from the strafing of his staff car in Normandy. Rommel was born on 15 November 1891 in Southern Germany at Heidenheim,45 kilometres from Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, then part of the German Empire. He was the third of five children of Erwin Rommel Senior, a teacher and school administrator, as a young man Rommels father had been a lieutenant in the artillery. At age 18 Rommel joined the local 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment as a Fähnrich, in 1910 and he graduated in November 1911 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in January 1912 and was assigned to the 124th Infantry in Weingarten. He was posted to Ulm in March 1914 to the 46th Field Artillery Regiment, XIII Corps and he returned to the 124th when war was declared. While at Cadet School, Rommel met his wife, 17-year-old Lucia Maria Mollin. They married in November 1916 in Danzig, during World War I, Rommel fought in France as well as in the Romanian and Italian Campaigns. The armies continued to skirmish in open engagements throughout September, as the trench warfare typical of the First World War was still in the future. For his actions in September 1914 and January 1915, Rommel was awarded the Iron Cross, Rommel was promoted to Oberleutnant and transferred to the newly created Royal Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion of the Alpenkorps in September 1915, as a company commander. The Mountain Battalion was next assigned to the Isonzo front, in an area in Italy. The offensive, known as the Battle of Caporetto, began on 24 October 1917, Rommels battalion, consisting of three rifle companies and a machine gun unit, was part of an attempt to take enemy positions on three mountains, Kolovrat, Matajur, and Stol. In two and a days, from 25 to 27 October, Rommel and his 150 men captured 81 guns and 9,000 men. In one instance, the Italian forces, taken by surprise, acting as advance guard in the capture of Longarone on 9 November, Rommel again decided to attack with a much smaller force

The signing of the Tripartite Pact by Germany, Japan, and Italy on 27 September 1940 in Berlin. Seated from left to right are the Japanese ambassador to Germany Saburō Kurusu, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Galeazzo Ciano, and Adolf Hitler.

In Occupied France during the war, reproductions of the 18 June appeal were distributed through underground means as pamphlets and plastered on walls as posters by supporters of the Résistance. This could be a dangerous activity.

Free French Forces Adrian helmet with the Cross of Lorraine replacing the 1939–1940 French Republic "RF" emblem

Bernard L. Montgomery, DSO (pictured on the right as a captain), with a fellow officer of 104th Brigade, 35th Division. Montgomery served with the brigade from January 1915 until early 1917.

Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, GOC V Corps, with war correspondents during a large-scale exercise in Southern Command, March 1941.

Senior officers discuss operations during Exercise 'Bumper', 2 October 1941. On the left the Chief Umpire, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, talks to the C-in-C Home Forces, General Sir Alan Brooke.